In your opinion, how many days will flights be delayed as a result of the attacks at Brussels Airport?

I think flights in and out of Brussels will be back to normal within two days at the most. But, then again, I really don't know what I'm talking about.

Looks like the black boxes are ruined:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35856680

Slightly a diversion, I don't understand this:

FlyDubai said the Cypriot pilot and Spanish co-pilot each had nearly 6,000 hours of flying experience

I'm always confused by this. 6,000 hours sounds like a lot of flying to me, but what does this really mean when it comes to landing a plane safely compared with someone who flew, idk, 4,000 hours? When you compute it, 6,000 hours is 150 40-hour weeks of flight, which I suppose is respectable, but I'm confused by what this means and why it matters to say this after every flying incident. Surely, no airline is going to hire one someone a porter with an "interest" in flying.

While I understand the PR angle of this, what does it mean for the other pilots, the company, etc?

Essentially, the number of hours pilots have flown can give a relative idea as to the amount of experience he or she has. For example, you could compare your driving experience of your daily commute to work to the experience of a commercial, long haul trucker.

Let's say you commute 25 miles each way daily in your Chevy Impala, totaling 12,500 miles annually. The long haul trucker drives 450 miles daily in a semi-truck, totaling 112,500 miles annually.

Over the course of that year you will be exposed to sunny skies, dry roads; wet roads with standing puddles; snow storms, with white out conditions; and, days with high winds. These factors will affect your driving and you will gain judgement and a skill set to deal with these conditions. But, you will only be exposed to these conditions a fraction of the amount that the long haul trucker is exposed to them. Additionally, the trucker is hauling a 53 foot box behind the cab which - when the wind hits it - makes the tail end swerve; or, when the road is slick and the truck heads downhill, he or she needs to be planning far ahead from when they need to use the brakes, jake brakes, or down shifting.

A comparison between your daily driving experience and a long haul trucker's is similar to what the media is trying to accomplish when they talk of a 6,000 hour pilot versus a 4,000 pilot versus a 1,500 hour pilot. While it is somewhat ambiguous, they are stating that these pilots have a fair amount of experience between the two of them.

The minimum in the US to be eligible for your Air Transport Pilot certificate (which is required to fly commercial aircraft like FlyDubai, USAir, Delta or regional airlines like Republic) is 1,500 hours total time. So, by the time these pilots logged 6,000 hours, they have had many, many take off and landings, encountered various weather conditions and have had to exercise their judgement frequently - determining the best course of action which will result in the safest and most desirable outcome for the flight.

Part of this process of determining a desired outcome for the flight is by using the resources available to the flight crew - which includes discussing options with each other. Rarely does an accident occur without multiple causal factors which build and build until the end result is now inevitable. At any point, if one of the crew can stop one or more of those factors the fate of the flight might change and have a good outcome, a safe landing.

No one knows at this point, after the first attempt at landing, what the discussion in the cockpit was for attempting additional landings, diverting to another airport, or what they expected the weather conditions to change to (more favorable / unfavorable).

Unfortunately it takes a long time for the agencies to determine what they believe the factors causing the crash are. And in the age of immediate gratification, internet and media sensationalism, there are going to be those who speculate what they think the cause was without having all the facts or being involved with the investigation. Take for example a former FlyDubai Captain who is stating that fatigue was a causal factor: Fatigue - and he may be right; but, it really is too early to speculate without looking at the pilot's schedules and rest periods.

Weather (high winds and possible wind shear) is a strong possibility; there was a report of a possible tail strike during the first attempted landing. There are others who speculate it was a fuel issue, terrorism and other reasons. But, until the final report is published we wont know exactly the sequence of events leading to the disaster, and therefore the reasons of the crash. So all I mean to bring to light is that what you hear on the media sources does not necessarily accurately depict what occurred.

So to finally answer your question, the difference between a 6,000 hour pilot and a 4,000 hour pilot landing the airplane safely is a difference in skill and judgement only determined by the experiences those pilots have had. However, airlines standardize cockpit procedures to eliminate those differences of skill and experience to make air travel as safe as possible. The cockpit crews attempt to make every takeoff and landing identical to the last one and the next one. Each crew member knows what their role is for each phase of flight, what they are expected to do and what they expect the other to do.

If you are interested in a comparison of flight crew experience, there is a very similar crash that occurred in Russia in 2013: Tartarstan . That crew had about 2,500 hours each.


One difference between flying aircraft and working a typical office job is that pilots don't "work" a traditional 40 hour work week. They might put in more than 40 hours of work per week, but they are only logging flight time when the aircraft is moving under it's own power.

So a typical day for the pilot would be to show up at the airport, review paperwork (weather and manifest), pre-flight the airplane, board the passengers and fly to the first destination. After the aircraft arrives at the destination, unload the passengers, get fuel and catering, review paperwork, board passengers, rinse and repeat.

But what happens if you take a weather delay at this first stop? Well, your day is stretching out, but you're not logging flight time. Mechanical issue? Same result. So the pilot might have logged 2 hours of flight time and been working for the past 7 hours. Eventually there comes a point where the pilot needs rest and is released from duty.

To get to the point, many airlines have a minimum guarantee of about 75 hours per month (you're going to get paid for 75 hours of flight time whether or not you fly 75 hours that month.) But at the airlines you can't fly more than 1,000 hours per calendar year. This comes from a part of the FAA rules for Airline pilots, which can be found at: 14 CFR 121.471

I responded to someone on another forum who wondered how long in terms of years it takes to go from no experience to Airline Captain. It is a pretty long write up, so here is a link if you are interested, but essentially it says:

This website does a pretty good job at briefly explaining how flight time relates to expereince : Flight time

So, sorry if I went off into the weeds a bit, but I hope this helps answer your question about flight time. I imagine WOXOF can explain some of the details as well, if not a bit more clearly.

There is no doubt that flight experience means something. Without knowing anything else, I'd rather have the guy with 10,000 hours of flight time vs. the guy with 1,500 hours. Even more important is "time in type," i.e. the amount of experience the pilot(s) have in that specific type of aircraft.

Let's take my case, for example. I have over 20,000 hours of total flight time. But if I bid over to the Airbus, I'd be flying a totally unfamiliar airplane. My experience, and the training I receive, will ease my transition into this new type, but the company imposes limitations on me for my first 100 hours of line flying in this new type. These are mainly weather limitations, requiring higher ceilings for the destination airport.

moxiepilot did a superb job of answering your post. As I read his reply, I found myself nodding vigorously in agreement with many of his points. Here are two I'd like to emphasize:

We call these causal factors the error chain and part of CRM training is developing habits and techniques to break the error chain. Among these habits are (1) strict adherence to checklist discipline, and (2) crew confirmation and agreement on all clearances from ATC. Additionally, I always include in my pre-flight briefing an emphasis on slowing down the operation if either of us are beginning to feel rushed. This is particularly important with a new First Officer (we've got a lot of new hires recently). I don't want to inadvertently rush him if he's getting overwhelmed by the pace of the operation. It takes some time to get comfortable with the routine of line flying.


This is what I really try to avoid. Many times, I'm asked by a friend, "Hey, Steve, you fly airplanes. What do you think happened in that crash this weekend?" I always answer: "Hey, you drive cars. What do you think happened in that crash on the beltway this morning?"




No, moxiepilot, I don't think I can improve much on your reply.

Thanks for the answer moxiepilot. I suppose my reservation is exactly what you addressed. It seems to me that, for the most part, the mention of flight hours is mostly meaningless to the general public. Most people would only the metric "more is better."

Up until yesterday, if they said "each pilot had 4,100 flight hours, I'd be seriously impressed because that sounds like a huge number, but reality is that these pilots likely started their job a month ago! And even considering the best case, it is possible that these two pilots just started. With that said, it seems a bit strange to put 2 greens in an airplane heading into a Russian winter. I know the pilot / copilot was discussed upthread, but still.

This is interesting, and it appears we never will know from the black box. Is it standard procedure to circle around for 2 hours and not talk to ATC?

Doesn't the landing angle look a bit steep on that CCTV footage? it looks like a good 60 degrees. Not asking you to watch it if you aren't interested.

I'm not speculating on what happened. I'm sure there will be a multi-month postmortem on this and we'll hear more about it in the future.

I don't know if this has been covered but where does the water for the coffee come from on the plane? Is it from a safe water source? Would you drink the airplane coffee/tea on a leisure flight? I have opted to avoid the coffee on planes

Each airplane has an on-board tank for potable water. Depending on your vantage point from the plane (while parked at the gate), you might be able to see a cabinet plainly marked "Potable Water" nestled up against the terminal building. This cabinet contains a long hose which is used to fill the plane's tank at the potable water service point. (On the MD-88, it's on the right side of the plane about 20' aft of the nose.)

I don't drink coffee and it's only been on rare occasions that I've had hot tea on board. It seemed fine to me, but I don't make a habit of it.

If you're stuck due to mechanical issues you're definitely entitled to compensation. At the very least they should have arranged a hotel for you with no out of pocket cost to you and provided meal vouchers. If you didn't get that I would call delta ASAP And if you don't get satisfaction call your consumer protection bureau (this may be a department of your district attorney's office)

There is a lot of conflicting information on how much attention those potable water tanks get during maintenance. Some reports suggest they literally never get cleaned and are full of mold.

Fwiw I fly a decent amount (90k butt in seat miles in 2015). I used to drink airplane coffee all the time and it never made me sick or anything but now I bring my own steel travel tumbler and fill it at the skyclub before boarding.

Thank you for your response. I am familiar with the "potable water" term due to working in a marine supply store. But I will take notice next time of where the hoses are going.




Yes that is my concern that the water storage itself might not be the cleanest. I guess for the one off occasion I can try the airplane Starbucks/dunkin. I believe I have had the Starbucks (I guess delta?)

I definitely didn't mean to hijack the thread over W0X0F's knowledge but figured I could jump in. Yes - essentially the metric of "more is better" is true so that the general public can make a correlation between hours and experience.

To give you a relative idea of experience, I have been flying for a living for 13 years and have about 6,000 hours. W0X0F has about 20,000 hours. How long do you think he's been in the industry

4,000 hours is still a wealth of experience in the big picture.

That's most likely not the case because of the way air transportation is set up. When an employee is hired by an airline they will go through a long period of training, both airplane and company specific training. Once the new hire has completed that training and they start flying the passengers, they go through a period of mentorship where a senior, experienced Captain shows them the ropes of the company operation.

I can not recollect any situation in commercial air travel where the flight crew is "green on green," meaning crew members who are both inexperienced. There will always be an experienced pilot who has flown with the company for a while training a new hire. Once out of training you may have two pilots who are relatively new to the company, but neither is an "inexperienced pilot." They will have been trained to a level of skill on company procedures, policies and flight procedures that there is no lack of experience to make safe decisions when scenarios present themselves to the flight crew.

I'm going to step back out of the thread because I think W0X0F does a better job at answering the questions; but, I'm going to lurk in the thread. I just got excited because I'm better at airplaning than pokering.

moxie, you're welcome here any time. This thread can only benefit from having the input from another professional pilot.


When I first started at Atlantic Coast Airlines (ACA), they had no rules in place prohibiting a low-time Captain flying with a low-time First Officer. And by low-time, I just mean time in type. The magic number is 100 hours and today you will never see a Captain with less than 100 in type paired with a First Officer with less than 100 hours in type.

ACA had one fatal accident (Flight 6291, January 7, 1994) during its existence (1989-2006), and "green-on-green" was a contributing factor, though you won't see that mentioned in the wikipedia article linked above. Immediately following this accident, ACA stopped green-on-green pairings.

Thanks for the compliment, but your posts have been great additions to the thread and you are welcome to chime in anytime.

The Brussels airport was closed for 12 days, as if to prove my disclaimer.

Going for my commercial ride tomorrow. Always overwhelmed by all the info... Does it ever get easier?

Way to go Wondercall. I'm sure you're well prepared and will do fine. It does get easier. Have fun and enjoy the ride.

Pretty cool old footage of approaches in Kai Tak airport. The narration makes is even better. Wish I could go plane spot back when it was open.

WOXOF some of the crosswind landings are so extreme the plane looks like it lands sideways. Do landings like that compromise the integrity of the landing gear?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP9o...&nohtml5=False

I don't know what general airline policy is, but I like this story:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-36022686

Yes, a plane that lands at an angle to the runway puts a side load on the landing gear that could be a real problem. The good news is that the landing gear is extremely robust, so it would have to be a really excessive angle to cause a collapse of the gear. A couple of the planes in your video seem to be going beyond this point, imo.

I know this topic has come up before itt, and I've pointed out that correct crosswind landing technique is to align the airplane with the runway prior to touchdown. With a strong wind from the left, you would be flying down final with the nose angled into the wind, so the nose needs to come right before landing. This is achieved by using right rudder at the appropriate time. But now, that left crosswind will tend to blow the plane off the right side of the runway, therefore the pilot rolls in left aileron as he increases the right rudder input (cross controls).

Because this action also physically lowers the wing, we can only use a certain amount of correction before we risk actually having the aileron contact the ground when we land...this sort of thing is frowned upon in our line of work. Thus, each airplane type has a maximum "demonstrated" crosswind component for landing (having been demonstrated by the manufacturer's test pilots).

The C-5, built by Lockheed, incorporated landing gear that could be rotated to align the gear with the runway and allow the plane to be landed with a significant angle between the runway and the airplane's longitudinal axis, thus eliminating the need to land wing low and risk a wing strike.

(I just called my brother, who flew the C-5, to ask about this capability. He said it was only on the "A" model and was eventually removed even from that model. Apparently the benefit/cost just wasn't there. He said that in 10 years of flying that plane, he used the feature one time. It was in Prestwick, Scotland, and he said it's a very strange sensation to land a plane while maintaining the crab angle right to touchdown.)

That is a nice story, but I think most pilots would have done the same thing. Returning to the gate is not standards ops, but it's really not that big a deal.

Do the test pilots test this by landing with a crab angle without a crosswind, or do they wait for various degrees of crosswind conditions and test it when the circumstances arise?

Or do they place a huge ass fan next to the runway and blow wind across the runway at higher and higher rates? [probably not, but that visual is very amusing]

They just wait for a windy day and do it the old fashioned way.

WOXOF, I recall in the simulator you had the instructor cut power and you safely landed like 50 miles away. Say you are in your normal plane sitting on a runway and a giant crane lifts you straight up to 30,000 feet and then lets go.

Easy to get the plane gliding in the direction you need to land if an airport is 10 miles away?? Would you be able to land at the airport directly below? What would you say would be the farthest away you could safely land the plane?

When I did that in the sim, we were 90 miles east of San Francisco at 35,000' and it worked out beautifully. The only real difference in the hypothetical you propose is that we would have to use some of our altitude to go from 0 to an acceptable glide speed. Once we've gotten to this speed, the scenario is the same, and the plane is completely maneuverable so we can turn in any direction to head to an airport.

The acceleration due to gravity is 32 ft/sec/sec, so in just ten seconds the plane would be going 320 ft/sec or 218 mph, which is getting pretty close to a good glide speed (varies by aircraft type and gross weight). In ten seconds, the altitude loss would be given by s=1/2at^2=1600 feet, so we would still be high enough to glide a long way, probably up to 60 miles or so.

Landing at a suitable airport beneath us is no problem. We can just do a lazy gliding spiral down to a high pattern altitude and set ourselves up for the runway of our choice.

I would think there is no guarantee that the plane would drop in such a way that you could get in a glide right away. Don't you need air flow going over the wings the correct way? What if you aren't nose down to start and begin to spin?