The great big "ask an airline pilot" thread!

faceman

Back again biting nails on the SFO - DUB route!

Normally on this route we fly on the 332. I remember reading before that the 333 doesn't have the range? Either way I'm in a 333. Passenger load though is apparently c. 100 people and some flight reloading had to be done due to "trim". I'm curious, is the while range thing a red herring with the 333 or was the airline able to forecast the load would be light and therefore put a 333 on the route?

(Fwiw theres a faint Aurora Borealis on display over Canada tonight but it's not as prominent as last time.)

L1011

faceman wrote: »

Back again biting nails on the SFO - DUB route!

Normally on this route we fly on the 332. I remember reading before that the 333 doesn't have the range? Either way I'm in a 333. Passenger load though is apparently c. 100 people and some flight reloading had to be done due to "trim". I'm curious, is the while range thing a red herring with the 333 or was the airline able to forecast the load would be light and therefore put a 333 on the route?

(Fwiw theres a faint Aurora Borealis on display over Canada tonight but it's not as prominent as last time.)

The new 333s EI have can make it. The 1994 spec ones they had originally couldn't.

Needing to rearrange pax when there's only 100 for trim would be normal.

Tenger

faceman wrote: »

Back again biting nails on the SFO - DUB route!

Normally on this route we fly on the 332. I remember reading before that the 333 doesn't have the range? Either way I'm in a 333. ..... I'm curious, is the while range thing a red herring with the 333 or was the airline able to forecast the load would be light and therefore put a 333 on the route?....)

As above the newer A333 versions have more range that the 'original series' models. EI's current fleet of A333's date from 2007-2011.
I believe however that there is a restriction on cargo payload (but not with a 100 pax)

EI are operating A333's on Sundays DUB-SFO-DUB at present due to having 2 aircraft at a time down for maintenance and cabin refit. Should be back to 100% A332 by the end of March.

basill

Also the other 332 (DAA) is being used exclusively on the Novair Scandinavian-Caribbean wet lease. It's due to swap over with LAX in a few weeks time so that the former can go into scheduled maintenance and also receive its cabin refit.

amen

I was watching this visual approach into Innsbruck airport, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9kjrhhjOP8 and I was wondering would the pilots get a ground proximity warning as they passed over the mountain tops or does the warning only kick in if he ground in front of them is of sufficient height so as to cause a collision ?

smurfjed

Bad day at the office...... for someone....

Chuck Aaron

smurfjed wrote: »

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?

I imagine they were either trying to burn off some airspeed or below say 1000 feet its a SAR SOP, would be interesting to know the reason, where abouts was it flying around?

MoeJay

amen wrote: »

I was watching this visual approach into Innsbruck airport, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9kjrhhjOP8 and I was wondering would the pilots get a ground proximity warning as they passed over the mountain tops or does the warning only kick in if he ground in front of them is of sufficient height so as to cause a collision ?

Disclaimer: I have never operated into Innsbruck; several procedures require specific training and authorisation from the Austrian authorities to be able to operate in there.

Without knowing the procedure and/or the terrain and height they are flying at it's not easy to know; however in the recording I believe you would hear the GPWS if activated...somebody else might have more local knowledge!

EGPWS does provide "look ahead" functionality with a built in terrain database based on aircraft position to give an earlier warning of danger. Basic GPWS lets you get an awful lot closer before the "Pull Up" warning sounds...!

Further reading on (E)GPWS here: http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Terrain_Avoidance_and_Warning_System_%28TAWS%29

billie1b

Would a 7hr flight on an A321-200 be near enough to its time/fuel limits with a full load or near full?

smurfjed

The last time that i looked at performance figures for the standard 321, it wouldn't go that far. The installation of Additional Centre Tanks has a weight impact of about 600 kgs, so adding the additional fuel starts to have an impact on the payload.

billie1b

Was just wondering as I spotted a flight from
EVE - LPA today operated by Thomas Cook, was down as an A321 OY-VKD with a flight time of 7hrs and a distance of 4980km.

Chuck Aaron

smurfjed wrote: »

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?

I've actually researched this as it wrecked my head not knowing...

The reason is some helicopters, the S-92 when a combination of altitude and/or airspeed is below safe operating limits the landing gear must not be retracted....Hence the aircraft flying around with the gear down in said situations.

A red landing gear up warning light will go off, on the flight deck.

Hope that helps.

smurfjed

Thanks for the answer, i appreciate the effort.

Chuck Aaron

smurfjed wrote: »

Thanks for the answer, i appreciate the effort.

It was driving me nuts lol, you're welcome.

protog777

Just wondering what would be the cheapest way to becoming an airline pilot? is there any airlines that supply fully sponsored cadetships?
Thanks protog777

TheBoss11

protog777 wrote: »

Just wondering what would be the cheapest way to becoming an airline pilot? is there any airlines that supply fully sponsored cadetships?
Thanks protog777

The cheapest way would be a modular pilot training course, modular training cost about 20k-30k less than an integrated course. Bartolini is a very cheap flight school in Poland worth having a look at, there integrated course are 45k. In terms of cadetships I only know of emirates who sponsors the full amount. The competition for cadet programmes is extremely intense though.

Wise Old Elf

A quick one for ye. There's an American Airlines 757 (http://www.flightradar24.com/AWE723/59f3298) circling in a hold pattern after taking off from Dublin, presumably trying to sort out some technical issue. The question is, can you program these holds (I know they have names but can't think of them) into the autopilot, or would this be manual flight?

PapaQuebec

Wise Old Elf wrote: »

A quick one for ye. There's an American Airlines 757 (http://www.flightradar24.com/AWE723/59f3298) circling in a hold pattern after taking off from Dublin, presumably trying to sort out some technical issue. The question is, can you program these holds (I know they have names but can't think of them) into the autopilot, or would this be manual flight?

The crew can program a hold into the FMC

Appears to be positioning for an approach to RW28 now.

protog777

TheBoss11 wrote: »

The cheapest way would be a modular pilot training course, modular training cost about 20k-30k less than an integrated course. Bartolini is a very cheap flight school in Poland worth having a look at, there integrated course are 45k. In terms of cadetships I only know of emirates who sponsors the full amount. The competition for cadet programmes is extremely intense though.

Thanks for the reply, saw that on the emirates website, there was something about a family book? Does this mean that only uae citizens can apply?

smurfjed

The question is, can you program these holds

They are called "HOLDS"... you can program them with the FMS, it will give you options of altitude/speed, time, length of each leg, the direction of the hold and a few other things. Its actually easier to fly a hold in an airliner than it was in my initial instrument rating in a Duchess

Wise Old Elf

smurfjed wrote: »

They are called "HOLDS"... you can program them with the FMS, it will give you options of altitude/speed, time, length of each leg, the direction of the hold and a few other things. Its actually easier to fly a hold in an airliner than it was in my initial instrument rating in a Duchess

Thanks!
Do you get pre-arranged HOLDS from Jeppeson charts for each aerodrome, or do you get specifics from ATC; e.g. if Dublin ATC tells you to hold at KERAV, do you have to pull that info from charts?

smurfjed

Depends on the FMS Navigation Database, common holds are usually in the database, but ATC can tell you to hold in your present position, or hold @ xxx, then you get a blank hold page, you can place the hold where you want it and define the parameters, of if you are really feeling in a good mood, then you can fly it without the FMS by just selecting headings and timing the procedure.

eatmyshorts

TheBoss11 wrote: »

. In terms of cadetships I only know of emirates who sponsors the full amount. .

The Emirates cadet scheme is only available to UAE nationals.
The Etihad scheme is open to all nationalities.

faceman

Curious about different airplane cruising speeds. Currently on an A332 en route to SFO again.

There's a 90mph headwind and we're cruising at 508mph (sorry don't have the knots.)

Theres a 773 close by en route to LAX cruising at 598mph. There's also a 747 cruising at 543mph also en route to SFO.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of air traffic according to Flight Radar in the area. Are these speeds ATC set or is this the standard cruising speed of our aircraft types? I ask because our flight was delayed so was wondering if the pilot would make up some time.

For reference all aircraft above are flying over the state of Saskatchewan in Canada

Irish Steve

The 777 will normally cruise at about M.84, about 560 mph, the 330-200 cruises at about .81, which is 540 mph, and the 747 cruise is about about .85, or .855, about 570 mph.

If the aircraft is operating outside of airspace with radar cover, like the North Atlantic track system, then all aircraft at a particular level will be required to fly at the same Mach No, and separation is achieved by making them fly a given time apart.

Where radar is available, ATC will normally allow the aircraft to operate at their most economical cruise speed.

A very significant factor is the wind at different levels, and that can vary very much, even over a relatively small change in altitude, so where ever possible, flights will seek to get the most advantageous level available, as it can make quite a difference to the flight time.

smurfjed

There is another thing at play here called ECON FLIGHT, this basically is a cost calculation done by the airline for some of the variable aircraft, crew costs versus the fuel cost. Once this is calculated a value is entered into the FMS, the flight will then be flown at the most ECONOMIC speed for that altitude and associated winds. The crew do have the ability to increase the speed if they are late, but i would expect that more at a hub airport rather than a point-to-point airport where they costs associated with the delayed passengers would be a factor.

For the 777, M84 is pretty close to Long Range Speed, the B744 ranges over a huge range of LRC speeds from over M86 to 82. The airbus, no idea

smurfjed

While we are discussing Northern Canada, there is an area there called the Area Of Magnetic Unreliability.... Do you guys fly over that area? And if so, do you do it in MAGNETIC or TRUE.

Same questions for the NAT/MNPS?

Cheers

NewSigGuy

smurfjed wrote: »

While we are discussing Northern Canada, there is an area there called the Area Of Magnetic Unreliability.... Do you guys fly over that area? And if so, do you do it in MAGNETIC or TRUE.

Same questions for the NAT/MNPS?

Cheers

Airbus 330 Mach is normally .82, A380 .85 but the speeds are CI dependent.

For the NATS we fly Mag and in the North Pole Area it is True, the Aircraft changes itself to True when above between 73N and 82N depending on where you enter the polar zone.

fricatus

A number of times now, when I've been on long-haul flights, I've heard the pilot over the intercom saying that we'd be initially cruising at say 28,000 feet, and then cruising at a higher altitude later on in the flight once we'd burned off a certain amount of fuel.

Why is this? Would it not make sense to get to an altitude that allows a fuel-efficient cruise and just stay there? Is there a big fuel-consumption penalty for every extra 1,000 feet of climb?

jamo2oo9

fricatus wrote: »

A number of times now, when I've been on long-haul flights, I've heard the pilot over the intercom saying that we'd be initially cruising at say 28,000 feet, and then cruising at a higher altitude later on in the flight once we'd burned off a certain amount of fuel.

Why is this? Would it not make sense to get to an altitude that allows a fuel-efficient cruise and just stay there? Is there a big fuel-consumption penalty for every extra 1,000 feet of climb?

It's due to the weight of the aircraft. You can only cruise at a certain altitude with a limit of weight. The heavier the aircraft is, the lower the cruise altitude will be. Then when it's lighter, it'll ascend accordingly to what ever height suits them best in terms of weather and fuel economy.