In passes one (dash cam), two, and four you can see the lead plane out in front of the DC-10.

Definitely looks like fun flying. One of my buddies is one of those pilots at Neptune and I get jelly every now and then. He's in the fire planes with props though, not the jets.

You ever fly into San Diego? The planes flew so low while landing that you couldn't help to duck. The airport, I think, was at the bottom of some mountains, and we were kind of close the airport as well.

What is considered "low" over a city? The planes, from my perspective, are huge, but how high up were they? These definitely didn't seem to be 3,000 feet.

I live about 9 miles directly east of the airport here, when the planes are landing on runway 27 they are about 2500 feet when they pass my house.

You are right about San Diego. The approach from the east follows the contour of the land during the decent. It can create a disturbing illusion from the cockpit and it's especially important during a visual approach (i.e. when not flying an ILS) to cross-check the altitude vs. distance to the runway. So at, say, two miles from the runway we are about 600' above the TDZE (Touch Down Zone Elevation), but less than 600' above the ground.

Watched "Charlie Victor Romeo" last night. It's basically a reenactment of several aviation disasters. The dialogue is all verbatim transcripts from the cockpit voice recorder. Highly recommended.

Very intense, I was having heart palpitations through various points of the film. Would make for a great in-flight movie.

Is there an instrument that tells you your elevation relative to TDZE, or do you have to watch your elevation above sea level and know the TDZE and do the math and at the same time monitor AGL?

You have to do the mental math, BUT... we also have a radar altimeter (RA) which gives height above the ground as a digital readout on the Primary Flight Display. This begins displaying automatically at 2500' agl. For relatively flat terrain (e.g. around JFK), this is very close to height above the runway. At San Diego, it would be a big mistake to treat RA as height above the runway.

Great thread!

Saw this today:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/tr...id-flight.html

How often does this happen? And what cause is possible for that? Do you think it was seriously dangerous?

It's a fairly rare event. I don't think I've ever had a windshield crack in all my flying.

The windshield on a passenger plane has multiple layers to it and is about an inch thick. The front windshields are electrically heated continuously which gives them greater strength and increases their ability to withstand birdstrikes. When a windshield cracks, it's almost always just the outer or inner pane that actually cracks and there is no immediate threat to flight safety.

The heated windshields are pretty expensive. I think I remember the CRJ's windshields cost about $20k each.

15 years ago, I was on a plane from the US to Northern Europe and was lucky sit next to a passanger who said he used to be or was a pilot. As I kid, I always grew up wanting to become a pilot so had the opportunity to ask him a few questions.

I remember something in particular, which I would like to ask if is true. It was night time during the flight and there was sun on one side of the plane and darkness on the other. When I looked at the entertainment screens, I noticed that all the screens on the side facing the sun had much brighter picture than the ones facing the dark side.

The "pilot" passanger tried explaning to me the reason for this, something about magnetic fields or something causing the electronics or screens to behave differently due to the circumstances. Is this true? If so, could you explain it a little better?

Additionally, he also said that, if they expected a little turbulance (not heavy), then sometimes they would start to serve meals so that people would get distracted from the shaking and not get too worried. Is this also true or made up?

This explanation sounds ridiculous to me. Now, assuming that what you witnessed was real and not some kind of optical illusion, there would have to be light sensors in the displays that adjusted screen brightness accordingly. I'm not aware of any such sensors in the passengers on-board entertainment systems but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

The MD-88 has such sensors in the cockpit engine displays and I've seen it happen a few times where direct sunlight is hitting one side of the display stack and the other side is in relative shadow. The sunlit side is bright and the other side is dimmed (there only seem to be these two levels of brightness; there isn't a gradient depending on the amount of light).

This also sounds made up. I've never heard FAs mention such a tactic. They have a schedule for service during the flight and their only concern about turbulence is whether it will be bad enough to cause a suspension of cabin service.

I am actually laughing and shaking my head at the same time right now. I foolishly believed this supposed "pilot" to be real and have told friends about it multiple times, haha.

Anyway, I remember clearly that the screens on the right side all had a brighter image compared to the screens on the left. We were travelling from the US to Europe, so I assume right was south and left was north?

Perhaps the "pilot" had the time of his life, having a kid believing everything he was saying!

Man, seriously. I feel like a complete moron now...

Don't beat yourself up - just watch any aviation-related news story and you'll see all the time people just making up random crap and passing it off like it's true.

Your viewing angle of the screens probably had more to do with it.

My thoughts exactly.

Although the "pilot's" proficiency at BSing is pretty impressive.

Yeah, that's probably true. However, at the time I actually thought I had some "next level" knowledge that my classmates didn't, haha.

Hehe, yeah maybe. We were sitting in the middle section of the Jumbo, with the rows of four instead of three. It was just so clearly different in image brightness, but you still probably explained it there.

I am sure, if he were a cult leader, he probably could have convinced me to join in a second, haha. His wife was probably fully entertained throughout the flight

Flying LAX to SEA recently, we were 2nd in line to take off. But for some reason we departed the taxiway to the runway and reentered the taxiway that leads to the gates (there's probably better terminology for these things). But we didn't return all the way to our gate. We stopped after a few hundred feet and just sat there for 10 minutes or so (with no announcement of course). Then we throttled up, got back in line on the taxiway to the runway, and took off. What's a likely scenario that would cause a plane not to take off, but could be solved without returning to the gate?

Second question on the same LAX-SEA flight (separated for organization when this thread is still being read 5 years from now): about 4 or 5 times in the flight it smelled like fumes from raw sewage were being expelled from that little A/C nozzle above the seat. I am sure the nozzle was the source, not the guy in front of me farting (although I did think that the first time). Is there any way that the fumes from the latrines could accidentally be vented to the A/C lines? It was foul foul foul.

There are a few things that might necessitate exiting the runway and then getting back in line for takeoff. Some possibilities:

- A passenger went to the lav and a flight attendant called to let the pilots know.

- The tower directed the plane to exit the runway due to departure spacing considerations (a little unlikely that this would happen so late in the process)

- There was some minor indication or mechanical concern that was quickly rectified after exiting the runway.

In all of these cases, I would have made a PA to let the passengers know what was going on. It surprises me that you didn't hear a word from the cockpit.

W0X0F - Just a quick note of positive vibes on the medical front and to see whether you're closer to getting back in the front seat (if you're still wanting back in). Cheers!

I'm wondering how you can be so sure that it was all coming from the air vent. In any case, there is no connection between the lav and the air supply ducts (what an awful design that would be!). I've been in that situation and I was pretty sure it was just a flatulent fellow passenger.

I've been trying to enjoy my forced vacation. Lots of golf and poker. I'm going to have another CAT scan next month and if it's clear (like the last one was in June) we'll get the process started to return to work. How long that takes depends on the FAA. The thing I've got going for me is that none of the reports to date mention "metastasis," which is a red flag for the FAA.

I'm anxious to get back in the air. This is my longest period without flying since taking my first lesson in February of 1977.

Thanks for the positive vibes!

Then that guy seriously needs to see a gastroenterologist.

If you need us to send the FAA a letter, let us know. We're very persuasive.