Have you ever been told to brace or told passengers to brace if you're a pilot?

Rawr

Rawr wrote: »

I've had a few night-time go-arounds, which were more of an interesting delay to me at the time than something scary.

I did encounter wake tubulance once on a Ryanair enroute over the Irish Sea, which was a bit of fright. It felt like the whole plane just suddently dipped down several meters with an almight "BANG!" which echoed thoughout the craft.

Thankfully the flight crew came on and announced that everything was fine and that was a wake tublence from another plane that had gone ahead.

Yes the wake turbulence causes that sudden bang, like something hit the aircraft. Had it on last flight, out of Heathrow. The A380 has caused some very disturbing wake turbulence incidents and is not liked for that in the aviation world. A small jet nearly came to grief over it in vicinity of Arabian Gulf, was sent out of control dropping a few hundred metres. The aircraft is going out of production shortly for economic reasons. It requires extra handling facilities, only really makes sense on a few routes, and is a wake turbulence scourge in the skies.

goingnowhere

337 flights thus far

1 go around at Madrid well before threshold, Spanish ATC being Spanish ATC

1 go around at Dublin literally an inch more and we would have touched the runway, wind shifted and went out of limits (the IAA seem to like to use 28 even with a tailwind)

1 autoland into Dublin

Only ever had a single borderline scary landing, A330 into Dublin and it was bouncing around all the way down, even the cabin crew had been warned to strap in early. No other aircraft before or after us landed for 20+ minutes.

1 Is there a doctor onboard, while over Iceland


600,000+ km later, always arrived in the intended destination safely

Dardania

goingnowhere wrote: »

337 flights thus far

1 go around at Madrid well before threshold, Spanish ATC being Spanish ATC

1 go around at Dublin literally an inch more and we would have touched the runway, wind shifted and went out of limits (the IAA seem to like to use 28 even with a tailwind)

1 autoland into Dublin

Only ever had a single borderline scary landing, A330 into Dublin and it was bouncing around all the way down, even the cabin crew had been warned to strap in early. No other aircraft before or after us landed for 20+ minutes.

1 Is there a doctor onboard, while over Iceland


600,000+ km later, always arrived in the intended destination safely

Despite your username!

jimmy180sx

Ryanair flight was hit by lightning coming into land at Stansted last year. Cabin lights were dimmed so the whole plane lit up. The noise sounded like a bomb went off in the hold. Stewardess from back went running up the aisle. Panic on everyones face as we didnt know what it was. Pilot came on after landing and said congrats all youve been hit by lightning and survived. 1st and only time i grabbed the arm rests.

Mrcaramelchoc

goingnowhere wrote: »

337 flights thus far

1 go around at Madrid well before threshold, Spanish ATC being Spanish ATC

1 go around at Dublin literally an inch more and we would have touched the runway, wind shifted and went out of limits (the IAA seem to like to use 28 even with a tailwind)

1 autoland into Dublin

Only ever had a single borderline scary landing, A330 into Dublin and it was bouncing around all the way down, even the cabin crew had been warned to strap in early. No other aircraft before or after us landed for 20+ minutes.

1 Is there a doctor onboard, while over Iceland


600,000+ km later, always arrived in the intended destination safely

for those of us who dont know( namely me)what is the significance of this?


ive been on a few flights where the trolley service has been stopped but never told to brace thank christ.
but i do hate and always have the lack of info provided by pilots when something goes wrong.how hard is it to get on the pa and say its the air con or we have a little turbulence up ahead etc it calms the nervous fliers no end.i love hearing the pilots talk.

EdgeCase

What Username Guidelines wrote: »

Posted this before but can’t find it...

Flight to Barcelona years back. Hot day in Dublin, so you could see a mild vapour in the air as we boarded, from the air conditioning. Don’t think many noticed. As the plane spooled up for take off, more power went to air con and the vapour became more noticeable. One or two people obviously noticed, assumed smoke, and screamed in panic, you could actually hear the panic spread from the back of the cabin forwards.

Plane rotated and an air hostess unbelts and is climbing up the aisle telling people it’s ok, remain calm, etc. Girl sitting in front of me unbelts, whips around and kneels in her seat, hugging the back of her chair and screaming “OH MY GOD” in our direction. It was absolute chaos.

We level off, captain comes on and does absolutely nothing to ellay fears... “we understand there was a problem in the cabin on takeoff, we’ve checked out everything out and there doesn’t appear to be a problem, so we’ve taken the decision to continue” as opposed to “it’s grand, it was just the air con”

Poor girl in front swayed in here chair the whole way there.

That's fairly common though. I think the cabin crew need to absolutely point out that the vapour in the cabin is simply a mist caused by the high humidity today and the cold air from the air conditioning and it will disappear after a few minutes.

Negative_G

[Deleted User] wrote: »

A small jet nearly came to grief over it in vicinity of Arabian Gulf, was sent out of control dropping a few hundred metres.

A little more than that! Almost 9,000 feet and the aircraft was written off and people in the cabin suffered serious injuries.

http://m.aviationweek.com/business-aviation/german-challenger-totaled-after-a380-wake-turbulence

Dr.Sanchez

I used to teach helicopter underwater escape training to people working on oil rigs. After four years of it, I got tired of telling people to BRACE, BRACE, BRACE before dropping them (in their fake helicopter) into a pool and spinning it upsidedown.

AlphabetCards

Dr.Sanchez wrote: »

I used to teach helicopter underwater escape training to people working on oil rigs. After four years of it, I got tired of telling people to BRACE, BRACE, BRACE before dropping them (in their fake helicopter) into a pool and spinning it upsidedown.

I really enjoyed that, did it with the Royal Navy in Yeovil (I think). Was sobering when during the lights-out run, I swam downwards in the pool and a lad in scuba had to guide me upwards.

Dr.Sanchez

AlphabetCards wrote: »

I really enjoyed that, did it with the Royal Navy in Yeovil (I think). Was sobering when during the lights-out run, I swam downwards in the pool and a lad in scuba had to guide me upwards.

That's a common occurrence believe it or not. I will always remember one guy who swam all the down to the bottom and freak out when touched the floor! Haha

Nijmegen

Dr.Sanchez wrote: »

That's a common occurrence believe it or not. I will always remember one guy who swam all the down to the bottom and freak out when touched the floor! Haha

Better to have the freak out in a pool with a diver, I suppose. Scary!

goingnowhere

Mrcaramelchoc wrote: »

for those of us who dont know( namely me)what is the significance of this?.

Computer landed, braked and steered the aircraft down the runway entirely itself. Autopilot was only disengaged when we got to a walking pace.

Normally used in zero visibility conditions but typically its done more often as a training/currency requirement.

And the Airbus autoland/fly by wire does land nicely

smurfjed

^^^^^
Isn't it designed to do exactly that?

Tenger

Dr.Sanchez wrote: »

I used to teach helicopter underwater escape training to people working on oil rigs...........

Im getting shivers just reading that.

Dr.Sanchez

Tenger wrote: »

Im getting shivers just reading that.

It's not that bad really. Heres a video of me in action!

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

....in 2005 in Dubrovnik airport, it's in a valley and things get interesting when the wind is blowing strongly from the wrong direction. We were on an A320 and close to touchdown banked this way and that, a wingtip got closer to the ground than I would have liked

I used to love flying until an EI flight into Dubrovnik which got a little hairy as we came in to land, it was a sunny day but the plane hit fairly rough turbulence as we came in over the coast. The fact that we weren't expecting it was what freaked me out, I had been in worse turbulence previously but accepted it as a part of flying. Anyway, the plane was all over the place and was forced to abort the landing and do a go-around to come in to land from the opposite direction.

I laughed afterwards at the fact that when the Captain came on the intercom to explain what was happening after they commenced the go-around, one of the elderly lads behind me laughed to the other "Ha, women drivers!". Not a bother on either of them.

View Profile

goingnowhere wrote:

Computer landed, braked and steered the aircraft down the runway entirely itself. Autopilot was only disengaged when we got to a walking pace.

Not necessarily.

On my type (737), the autopilot is disengaged upon nosewheel touchdown.
Steering is by the pilot, autobrake is in use until the pilot wishes to override. Computer doesn't know where to vacate or taxi to. : D

goingnowhere

A320 will keep the aircraft on the centre line with the rudder just like a human would under Autoland

737 is the odd one out of current Boeings roll out is an optional extra

Dr.Sanchez

Dr.Sanchez wrote: »

I used to teach helicopter underwater escape training to people working on oil rigs. After four years of it, I got tired of telling people to BRACE, BRACE, BRACE before dropping them (in their fake helicopter) into a pool and spinning it upsidedown.

That training for oil rig workers has saved lives. Saw a reconstruction documentary of a rotor failure where an autorotation to a rough cold North Sea was required, and read the report. Very sobering stuff indeed. The design of the blades was subsequently altered so they could cope better with lightning strikes-the type of thing one would have imagined would have been tested for before. I took two helicopter lessons, was told I had an excellent feel for the altering forces from the tail rotor; I think the amount of reading about the subject of the variabilities of handling a chopper helped me prepare mentsllh no end and get much better value out of the two lessons I could afford to take. The autorotation demonstration and hands on practice on the second lesson was very sobering indeed, a split second to push the collective to the floor and get a constant 60 knots forward whilst steering gently to a chosen spot, followed by a neat little pull back cyclic flare and up collective very close to ground, whilst keeping straight as craft skids safely to a halt along the ground, no that weactually touched down of course! I asked to be pushed through all helicopter manoeuvres as either hands on or follow through as I had read up on the stuff. I got to land with myself using cyclic snd rudder pedals with instructor downing the collective when I had safely manoeuvred craft to landing spot. I think it was partly beginners luck, and partly my studies beforehand and imagining myself doing the thing, that enabled me to guide the little Robinson 22 to the exactly spot required, with great praise from the instructor who said he was never as good as that until very well on in his lessons. Most people don’t realise that much of the time the pressure required in helicopter flight is that which could be exerted by your little finger, although constant little adjustments are required to be just ahead of the craft. And watching g tbe carburettor ice situation needs constant vigilance, my instructor laughing as I reminded him to put on the heat! As one pilot, also a musician, once described, it is extremely like like the skill required to play a violin.

Pronto63

Back in the day when I was young, dumb and full of ...... I did a fair bit of skydiving. Was in a Cessna 182 with pilot and 3 buddies. Just so you guys know, jump-ships normally only have any seats or restraints for the pilot, not the skydivers.

Anyway we set off down the runway and bounced our way into the air. We were only just airborne, I'd guess under 100 feet, when the pilot looked back at us and shouted "crash positions". We sprawled our arms around and started moaning as if we'd just crashed - funny eh!.

I then noticed that the flaps were back down - normally the pilots first action after takeoff would be to retract the flaps. Things went very quiet in the aircraft.

We did a quick circuit around the field, no more than a minute or two, but I can recall formulating a plan of action for almost every eventually. How to get out if X happened, what to do if Y happened. The circuit seemed to take a lifetime.

The end result was a text book landing and a somewhat shook pilot.
The problem? I believe an oil seal gave way leading to a total and instantaneous loss of oil pressure.

A lot of beer consumed that night!!

Stovepipe

An Irish oil and gas company that I worked for used to decline to send people on that dunker course, saying it wasn't necessary in Gulf operations, just to save money, so a gang of us refused to use helicopters, which are essential for getting out to rigs and going between rigs (and using rig boats is very slow and a pain in the arse). Customer companies were not impressed when we declined to use helicopters without having done a dunker course, until we told them it was the Company refusing to pay for initial and recurrent courses. The American company that owned our company got wind of it and were furious and raged at our Boss, who was lucky to keep his job.

smurfjed

@Pronto63.. if that happened in P’town, I believe that the young pilot is now flying A380’s for Emirates.

LiamaDelta

Stovepipe wrote: »

An Irish oil and gas company that I worked for used to decline to send people on that dunker course, saying it wasn't necessary in Gulf operations, just to save money, so a gang of us refused to use helicopters, which are essential for getting out to rigs and going between rigs (and using rig boats is very slow and a pain in the arse). Customer companies were not impressed when we declined to use helicopters without having done a dunker course, until we told them it was the Company refusing to pay for initial and recurrent courses. The American company that owned our company got wind of it and were furious and raged at our Boss, who was lucky to keep his job.

I didn't think they would allow you on the helicopter without the training. They 'shouldn't' I guess.

ED E

Tenger wrote: »

Im getting shivers just reading that.

Dr.Sanchez wrote: »

It's not that bad really. Heres a video of me in action!

A longer video on the topic.

Can only imagine trying to extricate yourself while wearing LBE.

LiamaDelta

ED E wrote: »

A longer video on the topic.

Can only imagine trying to extricate yourself while wearing LBE.

And if you're the one by the window you may have to pull the strip and push it out!

Pronto63

smurfjed wrote: »

@Pronto63.. if that happened in P’town, I believe that the young pilot is now flying A380’s for Emirates.

Correct on the location.
Aircraft was Papa Juliet.
Pilot went to Aer Lingus lost track of him after that.

martinsvi

nothing really out of the ordinary has happened to me as a passenger, but as a pilot in my relatively short career probably one of the scariest experiences has been flying over Wicklow mountains in a light aircraft with mountain waves tossing me around, seat belt failing and me hitting the ceiling with mighty force almost blacking out.

In commercial experience nose-gear failed to come down once, had to do a go-around and perform alternate extension, no biggy.. 4 go-arounds so far.. Oh I hit a falcon recently on my wind shield, just on the flare, guts, feathers and blood covering my side of the view, not the smoothest landing I've ever done.

Sometimes the job tosses you some hard decisions as well, in one such occasion my captain was becoming increasingly sick, vomiting and temporarily loosing consciousness, but strictly refusing to divert or to declare emergency. But you have to do what you have to do, luckily we were not too far from home.

Another interesting event was last summer, a massive thunderstorm grew all around us over Germany, radar painting red colours left and right, no where to go, tops at FL400 unreachable for us. Skies turn black and we're up for one hell of a beating. This goes on for some 20 or 30 minutes with no break in sight and then all of a sudden our de-icing boots fail and we're literally turning into a flying brick of ice. There is a reset procedure in our QRH we have to try and I'm on it but it is difficult to read-and-do with aircraft shacking like crazy and lightning strikes blinding you constantly. Nothing works, we decide to divert and get out of icing ASAP but then we hear a guy below us declaring PAN because he's being hit by hail of the size of golf balls and his front windshield has cracks.. oh my, you're damned if you stay up there, you're damned if you go down.. the IAS is dropping, the pitch is getting higher, we decide to give it another go at resetting before we initiate a pretty much rapid decent in hopes to get out of it as quickly as possible hitting as few "golf balls " on our way as possible. Apparently the pneumatic pump had cooled down and was kind enough to restart with 3rd attempt at the reset procedure and we were able to continue our hell-ish journey for another 30 or so minutes before we were finally into clear. We had 3 people vomiting and another one peed her pants.. what to do..

Irish Steve

martinsvi wrote: »

nothing really out of the ordinary has happened to me as a passenger, but as a pilot in my relatively short career probably one of the scariest experiences has been flying over Wicklow mountains in a light aircraft with mountain waves tossing me around, seat belt failing and me hitting the ceiling with mighty force almost blacking out.

Memories of PPL flying a long time ago over South West England in a Rallye 110 and an instructor. We were returning to home base, an old USAF/RAF airfield in the Blackdown hills some 850 Ft above sea level, but found ourselves in the uncomfortable position of being on full power, with climb attitude set, and best climb speed, but still descending towards the high ground that was rising in front of us, due to the massive downdraught that we were in. Fortunately, it wasn't turbulent air, we ended up having to turn away from the route home, and let the airspeed build for a while running downwind, away from the worst of the downdraught, and then climb considerably higher in order to get above the worst of the downdraught, before turning back towards the airfield. Fortunately, the cloudbase was high enough to allow us to do it, if we'd been height restricted by cloud, there would have been no way to get back to home base that day, we'd have had to go somewhere else to land.

A number of years later, both myself and the instructor braced instinctively for impact when a controller error at Gatwick resulted in us having 100 Ft vertical separation from an opposite direction Dan Air BAC 1-11 that was on the base of the TMA at 2500 Ft, and we were (legitimately) operating at 2400 Ft with a different ATC unit. Gatwick had non Gatwick squawks suppressed, so didn't know we were there, and used the base of the TMA in error as a result. Brown trouser moment!

Pronto63

Pronto63 wrote: »

Back in the day when I was young, dumb and full of ...... I did a fair bit of skydiving. Was in a Cessna 182 with pilot and 3 buddies. Just so you guys know, jump-ships normally only have any seats or restraints for the pilot, not the skydivers.

Anyway we set off down the runway and bounced our way into the air. We were only just airborne, I'd guess under 100 feet, when the pilot looked back at us and shouted "crash positions". We sprawled our arms around and started moaning as if we'd just crashed - funny eh!.

I then noticed that the flaps were back down - normally the pilots first action after takeoff would be to retract the flaps. Things went very quiet in the aircraft.

We did a quick circuit around the field, no more than a minute or two, but I can recall formulating a plan of action for almost every eventually. How to get out if X happened, what to do if Y happened. The circuit seemed to take a lifetime.

The end result was a text book landing and a somewhat shook pilot.
The problem? I believe an oil seal gave way leading to a total and instantaneous loss of oil pressure.

A lot of beer consumed that night!!

Loss of oil pressure = find landing spot.
A 182 is challenging in case of an engine failure as it has a particularly high sink rate, although s good steady tourer aircraft. Of course when you are parachuting you always have to beware of the control yoke coming full back in the flare. Normally the only choice in engine failure at low height is to land pretty much ahead as a stall is likely in an attempt to make any significant turn.

Irish Steve

Irish Steve wrote: »

Memories of PPL flying a long time ago over South West England in a Rallye 110 and an instructor. We were returning to home base, an old USAF/RAF airfield in the Blackdown hills some 850 Ft above sea level, but found ourselves in the uncomfortable position of being on full power, with climb attitude set, and best climb speed, but still descending towards the high ground that was rising in front of us, due to the massive downdraught that we were in. Fortunately, it wasn't turbulent air, we ended up having to turn away from the route home, and let the airspeed build for a while running downwind, away from the worst of the downdraught, and then climb considerably higher in order to get above the worst of the downdraught, before turning back towards the airfield. Fortunately, the cloudbase was high enough to allow us to do it, if we'd been height restricted by cloud, there would have been no way to get back to home base that day, we'd have had to go somewhere else to land.

A number of years later, both myself and the instructor braced instinctively for impact when a controller error at Gatwick resulted in us having 100 Ft vertical separation from an opposite direction Dan Air BAC 1-11 that was on the base of the TMA at 2500 Ft, and we were (legitimately) operating at 2400 Ft with a different ATC unit. Gatwick had non Gatwick squawks suppressed, so didn't know we were there, and used the base of the TMA in error as a result. Brown trouser moment!

At least the lovely Rallye aircraft was a real beauty for managing comfortable steep approaches from on high. And so easy to get rid of excess height with side-slips.

Was watching Arthur Williams (the paraplegic ex-marine Pilot) flying his cub onto Blackdown in tricky winds. Again the Rallye was good in some awkward winds(used to keep the power on a bit) to have authority against the low wing dropping one side in turbulence, but climbing power wasn’t a strong point to say the least. Always best to err on high a bit of altitude to play with in that aircraft.