The great big "ask an airline pilot" thread!

owenc

Oh I did not realise that asking about westjet was unrelated to aviation.

eatmyshorts

pclancy wrote: »

This thread is for people who are interested in a commercial career in flying to ask a qualified commercial pilot questions about their daily lives, technical/system questions, career guidance, licencing, how best to become an airline pilot etc
.

It is not intended for general discussion, general aviation or PPL questions, chit-chat, discussion of sensitive hr/corporate airline information or anything that could break the A&A forum charter.
.

Post No. 1

Wicklowleaid

eatmyshorts wrote: »

Longer than year round? Great Scott, it must be some kind of DeLorean!!

P. S.
Post completely unrelated to the thread, again.

AGAIN being the operative word. It's getting very tiresome.

bkehoe

smurfjed wrote: »

May i ask why? we generally descend at a gradient which is adjusted based on the winds. Our seat belt policy is to keep it on to an altitude that is about 1/2 the ground temperature, so we can keep it on up to 25,000 feet, on the way down, its part of the descent checklist so its on right from the beginning of the descent with the landing lights.

My point was to try to simplify an explanation for the purposes of this forum; depending on weight, altitude, flaps, engine anti ice, etc the actual vertical speed will of course change as we plan to descend at a constant airspeed unless requested to do a specific airspeed by ATC, and as that airspeed is quite low we probably have an average vertical speed in descent of 1000-1500fpm. The point I was trying to clarify is that the majority of commercial aircraft will spend much more time in areas of potential turbulence in descent than climb.

Seat belts 15 mins before landing, therefore usually passing 15,000ft.

smurfjed

Question for Helicopter pilots... in the airplane world we are obsessed with fuel conservation so I was curious watching the Coast Guard helicopter flying around today with the gear down, the obvious answer was that it was landing :) But it was quite far from the airport.
Is there a reason for this?

jasonb

Might be a silly answer, but was it Taxiing? I always think it's strange seeing a Helicopter taxi when it can just take off straight up, but I guess it has to follow procedures like all other aircraft. So maybe it was taxiing with its wheels down for safety?

J.

Agent P

I think they do it in case of an emergency, so they can try and save the helicopter and the expensive equipment underneath it, if they have to get on the ground quickly. It's usually when they are low and slow, even when they are over water they seem to have the gear down.

n32

I was flying transatlantic with Aer Lingus last month and while watching the IFE I went to tilt the screen and the back of the screen was very hot. Is there not any method of cooling these screens? It seems a bit dodgy to have a few hundred screens getting hot during a long flight

smurfjed

- Sukhoi fighter aircraft the Indonesian Air Force again forced landing of a foreign aircraft.

Types of private jet Gulfstream IV departs from Singapore to Darwin Australia before heading to the final destination Brisbane.

"The plane was forced to land because the crew had to be checked by the personnel of the Air Force because it was caught entering Indonesian airspace without the full consent form documents the Flight Clearance to enter the sovereign territory of Indonesia," said Kadispen Air Force, Air commodore Hadi Tjahjanto, Monday (3/11).

This aircraft had tried to escape at high speed but still can ambushed by Sukhoi flight at a distance of 150 km northeast of Kupang at an altitude of 41 thousand feet and a speed of 450 kts from Napier.

Raid carried out under the control of Pangkosek Hanudnas II, military Marsma Tatang Herlyansah in Hanudnas II Sector Operations Center in Makassar, with full Pangkohanudnas under the command of Air Vice Marshal TNI Hadiyan Sumintaatmaja of the National Air Defense Operations Center at Halim air base.

The plane departed from Singapore and Singapore starting suspected not have permission to enter the territory of Indonesia letters by Kosek Hanudnas I Halim since airspace across the Riau archipelago and into Borneo route M-774 flight to Australia.

Air Force immediately deploy 2 Su-30. Had been a romp with the speed of sound before the pilots managed to force the Air Force jet landed in Kupang Eltari Lanud.

Probably a poor translation from Bahasa, but you get the gist.

Tenger

n32 wrote: »

I was flying transatlantic with Aer Lingus last month and while watching the IFE I went to tilt the screen and the back of the screen was very hot. Is there not any method of cooling these screens? It seems a bit dodgy to have a few hundred screens getting hot during a long flight

IFE systems are thoroughly tested before entry into service. The hot screen issue is just like using your laptop for a long time. The IFE screen I guess is in a moulded recess with no contact to material that may combust?

smurfjed

Four Air France cabin crew members suffered concussion when a flight from Paris to New York hit severe turbulence shortly after take-off on Tuesday.
The airline confirmed flight AF006 from Charles de Gaulle Airport to JFK Airport ‘encountered strong turbulence’ at the beginning of the cruise phase.
It says the plane’s captain decided to abort the transatlantic journey and return to Paris, where the superjumbo jet landed safely just before 4.30pm local time.

Interesting to note that two of the last four severe turbulence events were with A380's.(AF 04th Nov / SQ 18 Oct) The other two were also Airbus aircraft 333/346.

Billie1b, now your wife has a good reason to stay off the aircraft

Wise Old Elf

Was listening to the ATC recording of the United 777 that diverted to Dublin this evejing (smoke in cockpit). They were about 22 track miles from runway 16 when yhey told ATC that they had completed fuel jettison procedures.
Presumably this was over land. Is this normally allowed, and would you notice on the ground, or would the fuel vapourise and disperse into the air?
Hope that's not too silly a question!

youknowwho

smurfjed wrote: »

Interesting to note that two of the last four severe turbulence events were with A380's.(AF 04th Nov / SQ 18 Oct) The other two were also Airbus aircraft 333/346.

Smurfjed, where do you get the most uptodate info on such incidents and is it only available to the aviation industry?

Tenger

Wise Old Elf wrote: »

Was listening to the ATC recording of the United 777 that diverted to Dublin this evejing................they told ATC that they had completed fuel jettison procedures.
Presumably this was over land. Is this normally allowed, and would you notice on the ground, or would the fuel vapourise and disperse into the air?
Hope that's not too silly a question!

Normally allowed over land or sea. The priority is getting that aircraft on the ground. The infamous SwissAir crash (1999?) might have made it down safely if the flight hadn't loitered over the sea to dump fuel. They took too long to begin approach and the flight deck was consumed by smoke and fumes.

Most of the fuel would vapourise but chances are that the car owners under the jettison would find a slight residue on their vehicles afterwards.

fr336

Tenger wrote: »

Normally allowed over land or sea. The priority is getting that aircraft on the ground. The infamous SwissAir crash (1999?) might have made it down safely if the flight hadn't loitered over the sea to dump fuel. They took too long to begin approach and the flight deck was consumed by smoke and fumes.

Most of the fuel would vapourise but chances are that the car owners under the jettison would find a slight residue on their vehicles afterwards.

Close - 1998. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111

smurfjed

Youknowwho, have a look at www.avherald.com but only if you are not a nervous passenger

smurfjed

down safely if the flight hadn't loitered over the sea to dump fuel

My recollection of this was that he was dumping fuel to get down to a performance limited landing weight, so he felt that he didn't have an option. Following this accident, manufacturers started providing "inflight landing distance" charts rather than just the "preflight landing distance charts", this would enable crews to use the whole runway length for calculating the landing weight.

roundymac

I remember seeing one of those Discovery type docu-drama's which stated that even if he had tried a straight in approach he would not have made it when they compared his actual flying time to what it would have been for a straight in approach.
Open to correction.

jasonb

roundymac wrote: »

I remember seeing one of those Discovery type docu-drama's which stated that even if he had tried a straight in approach he would not have made it when they compared his actual flying time to what it would have been for a straight in approach.
Open to correction.

The wiki article linked to above says that too, though you can never be too careful with wiki...

J.

Noxegon

Tenger wrote: »

Normally allowed over land or sea. The priority is getting that aircraft on the ground. The infamous SwissAir crash (1999?) might have made it down safely if the flight hadn't loitered over the sea to dump fuel. They took too long to begin approach and the flight deck was consumed by smoke and fumes.

This accident is very familiar to me since I lost a relative in it; I visited the investigation a few months in, met with the investigator in charge Vic Gerden, and have the full report on my shelf.

Vic was unequivocal about the fact that the plane would _not_ have been able to make it to an airport even if the pilots had begun an immediate descent at the first sign of trouble. He said that the plane could have landed four minutes before the crash in theory, but in practice it wouldn't have been feasible, as this calculation assumed that everything on board was working properly with no distractions in the cockpit – and that by two minutes before that minimum landing time cockpit conditions were far from ideal.

smurfjed

The more recent UPS6 flight in Dubai showed just how rapidly a fire can destroy an aircraft, it also showed how single failures can have catastrophic consequences, in this case the failure of an air conditioning pack. I believe that from the time the crew were warned of the fire to the death of the Captain due to a lack of available oxygen and toxic fume inhalation was about 9 minutes, he was no longer alive when the aircraft went over Dubai airport high and fast.
I totally respect the actions of Dublin ATC and emergency services, so bloody what that "1000's were kept waiting on the ground and in the air" (DM Again:)) At least they were safe.

I am interested in reading the report about why they didn't land on 16.

fr336

smurfjed wrote: »

The more recent UPS6 flight in Dubai showed just how rapidly a fire can destroy an aircraft, it also showed how single failures can have catastrophic consequences, in this case the failure of an air conditioning pack. I believe that from the time the crew were warned of the fire to the death of the Captain due to a lack of available oxygen and toxic fume inhalation was about 9 minutes, he was no longer alive when the aircraft went over Dubai airport high and fast.
I totally respect the actions of Dublin ATC and emergency services, so bloody what that "1000's were kept waiting on the ground and in the air" (DM Again:)) At least they were safe.

I am interested in reading the report about why they didn't land on 16.

This a trillion times.

Growler!!!

smurfjed wrote: »

I am interested in reading the report about why they didn't land on 16.

I was working that night and heard it all unfold. (Listening on box2). When they were offered 16 they asked about runway length, decision alt and missed approach. My presumption was that they didn't have or could not see the approach plates properly. There was a little confusion over runway lenght as it was passed to them in meters and took a while to convert to feet by ATC.
I heard them carry out the missed approach and they were told to climb to 3000 feet, I believe they were at 2500 feet or so at that stage.

Someone here said that she sounded stressed which is understandable. On some transmissions where questions were asked by ATC there was a pause and a male voice could be heard in the background then a response given, I presume this was the capt as pilot flying. I've been in a similar situation where decisions were being made by the capt and I was passing the info on as pilot monitoring.

A good job by all involved, with a safe and successful outcome.

Complaining about other people being inconvenienced by having to hold etc is horse sh@t, they would have been even more inconvenienced if there wasn't a successful landing. The rules of the air are derived from the rules of the sea and the biggest unwritten rule is that you always help your fellow seafarer or aviator in trouble.

tricky D

Growler!!! wrote: »

I was working that night and heard it all unfold. (Listening on box2). When they were offered 16 they asked about runway length, decision alt and missed approach. My presumption was that they didn't have or could not see the approach plates properly. There was a little confusion over runway lenght as it was passed to them in meters and took a while to convert to feet by ATC.
I heard them carry out the missed approach and they were told to climb to 3000 feet, I believe they were at 2500 feet or so at that stage.

They were a few miles out when they requested the change. It came shortly after a Shamrock made an enquiry about using 10, for whatever that is worth.

As for stress, well it was a stressful situation with smoke, weather, checklists, local unfamiliarity and the like in play, but that doesn't mean it was 'bad' stress. Sounded more like fairly normal stress given the situation.

de biz

It was the right decision to use 10 specially considering the runway surface was wet.
Crew did not sound stressed at all.In fact the PF sounded reassuring,even to the point where he deescalated ATC by advising on finals that it would be a normal landing.

smurfjed

I really don't want to second guess what the crew did, but for the sake of general discussion, can i ask why you think this?

It was the right decision to use 10 specially considering the runway surface was wet.

I thought that there was close to a 17 kt cross wind on RWY10

Tenger

Noxegon wrote: »

This accident is very familiar to me........met with the investigator in charge Vic Gerden, and have the full report on my shelf.

Vic was unequivocal about the fact that the plane would _not_ have been able to make it to an airport even if the pilots had begun an immediate descent at the first sign of trouble.......

Interesting to hear that.

smurfjed

WSSS 02C- USE WHEN NO SHIP IN CHANNEL OR SHIPS IN CHANNEL
WITH MAST ELEV LESS THAN141M. ATC WILL ADVZ MAST
HEIGHT WHEN EXCEED 141M.

I always loved this note on takeoff charts for Singapore, the aircraft's takeoff weight will be based on if there is a ship in the takeoff path or not, it was kinda funny

I believe that Boston has something similar. Scary to think that for the Classic B747, these things were pertinent.

ProfessorPlum

smurfjed wrote: »

I always loved this note on takeoff charts for Singapore, the aircraft's takeoff weight will be based on if there is a ship in the takeoff path or not, it was kinda funny

I believe that Boston has something similar. Scary to think that for the Classic B747, these things were pertinent.

Boston 04R approach minimums are increased when there are tall ships in port area. If they're taller than 144ft only a visual approach is allowed. It's a very disturbing view flying it - it really doesn't look right at all!

homerjay2005

martinsvi wrote: »

eh... here we go again with the ability to determine people's nationality by looking at them.

dont see anybody saying they based peoples nationality due to their looks, but ill let you have your moment!

however, you can tell pretty quickly where a person is from, due to their accent and quite often their name. for example, is somebody is called Oisin, Sinead or Aine, theres a good chance they are Irish before they open their mouth. likewise a Pawel, Agnieska or Marta is likely to be Polish, with a Raluca, Alexandra or Silva being from Eastern Europe, specifically Romania area. its not generalisation or racially based as you appear to be hinting, but simple conclusions based on tradition, history and experience. in fact, many people can tell where others are from based on their dresscode, their complexion and how they act - youd pick out Irish or Polish people out of a crowd no problem for example.

personally, ive noticed an increase in the number of Irish air hostesses lately on Ryanair and its safe to say that about 90% of Aer Lingus cabin crew are Irish.