The great big "ask an airline pilot" thread!

Growler!!!

braddun wrote: »

do you know how to glide your plane if you run out of petrol

I read they are going to teach it to commercial pilots

Ha ha, the writer of the article you read was talking out their arse. Perhaps a link to the said article would enlighten us all:D

martinsvi

smurfjed wrote: »

So how much did you guys fly in 2014?

*looks into logbook* whooping 8 hours and 39 minutes... I did lot's more as a passenger thou

MoeJay

Just shy of 555hrs with one trip left...of course there was a conversion course in there!

bkehoe

smurfjed wrote: »

So how much did you guys fly in 2014?

840 so far, and 25 more scheduled before the end of the year.

OzCam

smurfjed wrote: »

On the way home so the year is done.... grand total this year of 166 hours flying, thats low even by my standards. So how much did you guys fly in 2014?

Is that hours on duty, in the cockpit or actually Pilot Flying? Does it include simulator time or all the time you guys have to spend being tested? How is it defined?

owenc

Did the aer lingus planes overnight in america saying they didn't go there today?

smurfjed

Is that hours on duty

I wish it was Duty Hours, then i would have the easiest job in the world But the way that it works is something like this, report 2 hours before expected departure, 1.5 hours flying time, 6 hours waiting for same guy, 1.5 hours flying, drop off, reposition the aircraft and then 30 minutes after that we are off duty, so for 3 hours flying we can do 12.5 hours duty If its just a drop off, then if drops down to about 6.5 hours for 3 hours flying.

I'm sure that some of the others are required to record their actual duty time for the year, but we don't have duty limits so i don't worry about it.

eatmyshorts

868 hours so far this year. Got another 31 scheduled before the 31st.

Growler!!!

Here in JAA/EASA land our yearly duty hours cannot exceed 2000. Flight hours cannot exceed 900 hours. On average we do 75 hours actual stick and rudder bum in seat time a month. Again this doesn't include report times, standbys and generally hanging around for ops to make decisions time:D

eatmyshorts

OzCam wrote: »

Is that hours on duty, in the cockpit or actually Pilot Flying? Does it include simulator time or all the time you guys have to spend being tested? How is it defined?

Block hours is time between pushback and engine shutdown.
Duty hours are from report from duty till released.
Simulator time is not included.

smurfjed

Eatmyshorts.... how do you guys count bunk time?

eatmyshorts

smurfjed wrote: »

Eatmyshorts.... how do you guys count bunk time?

I'll get back to you on that one after my copious Xmas pints!

Tenger

owenc wrote: »

Did the aer lingus planes overnight in america saying they didn't go there today?

EI operated ex-BOS and JFK on Xmas day. I believe the aircraft came in on the 24th and stayed in the US for 24 hours. They will arrive back on the 26th after DUB opens up again.
That 0400 shift on the 26th is highly sought after among EI staff!!!

There was some issue with the Orlando - Dubin flight on the 23rd. Was due to arrive in DUB approx 0900 on 24th. Apparently there was a big issue with de-icing on MCO, this led to the flight crew going out of hours......pax offloaded and back to hotel for 12 hours until crew allowed to operate again. The flight eventually arrived into DUB after 2300 on the 24th. I believe DUB closes at 0100 on the 25th?

owenc

Tenger wrote: »

EI operated ex-BOS and JFK on Xmas day. I believe the aircraft came in on the 24th and stayed in the US for 24 hours. They will arrive back on the 26th after DUB opens up again.
That 0400 shift on the 26th is highly sought after among EI staff!!!

There was some issue with the Orlando - Dubin flight on the 23rd. Was due to arrive in DUB approx 0900 on 24th. Apparently there was a big issue with de-icing on MCO, this led to the flight crew going out of hours......pax offloaded and back to hotel for 12 hours until crew allowed to operate again. The flight eventually arrived into DUB after 2300 on the 24th. I believe DUB closes at 0100 on the 25th?

I thought they did that.

Bog Man 1

It appears to me that an increasing number of planes get into difficulty at high Altitude . The one off south America possibly the one in Indonesia and I saw a programme about one recently .
Is there a problem . Are the planes being asked to fly higher for economic reasons where there is a narrower safety margin between load and altitude . In other words the higher you go the possibility of doing certain manoovers gets riskier .
Are pilots given enough training to fly the plane at these heights when something unusual happens .
I was always a bit uncomfortable at take off and landing but now I get the uneasy feeling I might have my coffee spilt at high altitudes .
Thanks

smurfjed

Are pilots given enough training to fly the plane at these heights when something unusual happens .

I can only speak for US based training and i would say that the answer is NO. We presently don't do any training for high altitude problems with the exception of depressurisation. The FAA have recently mandated that high altitude stall training must be done, we expect this to be incorporated in 2015.

Others will tell you about the JAA syllabus.

Tenger

smurfjed wrote: »

I can only speak for US based training ...... The FAA have recently mandated that high altitude stall training must be done, we expect this to be incorporated in 2015.....

I wonder would I be right to assume this is part of the influence of the AF447 investigation?

Irish Steve

Bog Man 1 wrote: »

Are pilots given enough training to fly the plane at these heights when something unusual happens .

At last, and it's long overdue, the pendulum is swinging back in favour of learning how to fly when things go wrong, there have been too many incidents in recent years where lack of basic airmanship skills has been a major contributory factor.

To me, the crew flying the aircraft should be allowed to explore the entire envelope of the aircraft in the simulator, so that if things go wrong at any stage of the flight, they know what they can do, up to the limits of the airframe performance, to get out of that situation.

Way too many people have only been trained to fly using the automation, and to know how to find the right page in the standard operating procedure manuals, and if they are then faced with a situation (as per AF447) where the automation has thrown it's toys out of the pram, or there is no procedure in the manual to deal with the situation they are facing, there then comes that awful moment of "now what do we do?"

That's the bean counter influence, and it's a bad influence in terms of the requirement to be able to fly the aircraft regardless of the situation.

That said, over 99.9% of the time, nothing goes wrong, so your drinks won't be upset at height, but if things do go wrong, it may be a little unpleasant for a few moments.

The higher the aircraft goes, the narrower the safe operating speed window becomes, due to the air becoming thinner at height, there can be less than 20Kts between mach buffet from overspeed and stall speed. That can be challenging if for some reason the automation can't be used.

A relatively minor turbulence event can be frightening, but there's no real risk, most of the time. A severe encounter can indeed do damage, and in the worst case scenario, the aircraft may be brought down, as appears (based on limited information) to be the case with the Air Asia flight, though it's too soon to be absolute on what went wrong, we do know that they were restricted by ATC in the avoidance they could take, due to other traffic, which may be a significant factor.

basill

I can only speak for US based training and i would say that the answer is NO. We presently don't do any training for high altitude problems with the exception of depressurisation. The FAA have recently mandated that high altitude stall training must be done, we expect this to be incorporated in 2015.

Others will tell you about the JAA syllabus.

In EASA world we have been doing high altitude unreliable airspeed drills as part of our 320 and/or 330 training for the past couple of years since AF447. Previously our OPC or LPC was a relatively benign engine failure at take off well below max take off weight which lets face it ticks the boxes but is wholly unrepresentative of the type of situation you are more likely to find yourself in flying operationally.

So now each and every one of us will have etched in our heads 2.5 degrees pitch and 92.5% N1 when it all goes pear shaped.

owenc

Why on earth do these smaller jetliners point downwards on a slope?

MoeJay

I'll resist the temptation...

Short answer is most smaller airplanes have no leading edge devices (flaps or slats) and this produces the nose down pitch on approach. Some bigger airplanes like the DC8 had none whereas the 707 did and you can see the difference by looking up the pictures yourself of those aircraft on approach.

owenc

Um temptation? OK..

I wasn't talking about the approach, I think you misunderstood me. I am actually talking about the gradient of the nose of some small jets.

You can kind of see in the picture below that the aircraft is slanted a bit.
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Conviasa/Bombardier-CRJ-701ER-NG/2567611/L/&sid=f4c0496c49c75587184982ede55cad73

billie1b

Some a/c are built nose heavy, some are tail heavy and others are balanced in the middle

eatmyshorts

owenc wrote: »

Um temptation? OK..

I wasn't talking about the approach, I think you misunderstood me. I am actually talking about the gradient of the nose of some small jet

So why didn't you just say that the first time? Your first question made no sense.

Simon Gruber Says

I had wondered why the A330 has a slight nose down angle on the ground. The main gear seems to be taller than the nose. I guessed maybe it was maybe something to do with the angle of incidence affecting take off but, having searched it, I just found that either Airbus wanted to reuse the nose gear of the A300 or that they couldn't fit a longer strut for some reason in the nose and it's not for performance reasons. Is that all that's to it?

I see that the freighter variant has an extension "bubble" so that the gear is mounted lower to make it level on the ground.

Sparkrite

Any truth in the rumor that A350 drivers are being simmed with minimum automation?
Which in my humble opinion may lead back to pilots (Airbus et al) having those long lost skills of airmanship.
I honestly mean nothing derogatory by that.

Preset No.3

It was one of those questions that just got me when asked the other day.

Approach speed of your average jet is whatever it is, BUT my question is why do aircraft look so slow when decending?

Growler!!!

Preset No.3 wrote: »

It was one of those questions that just got me when asked the other day.

Approach speed of your average jet is whatever it is, BUT my question is why do aircraft look so slow when decending?

Do you mean on the approach?

The relative size of the aircraft can give the illusion of speed ie b777 on approach looks very slow compared to a Lear 45.

Scientifically though it can be because the aircraft is landing Into wind. Winds aloft can be up to 30kts higher. I know myself that a 10kt tailwind can make the approach feel relatively faster compared to normal.

smurfjed

As we are discussing flying at high altitudes, this might interest some...

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/Cessna%20525A%20Citation%20CJ2+%20N380CR%2001-15.pdf

Irish Steve

smurfjed wrote: »

As we are discussing flying at high altitudes, this might interest some...

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/Cessna%20525A%20Citation%20CJ2+%20N380CR%2001-15.pdf

Thanks for that, very interesting reading, and should have got Cessna's attention, given the safety recommendation that came out of the inquiry.

It was very close to becoming a much more serious accident, which might have had a very different outcome.