Good catch d10! I figured if anyone noticed that, it would be you.

The lower altimeter is the standby altimeter and it uses the alternate static source with no ADC (Air Data Computer) corrections. It doesn't meet the requirement of RVSM (Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum).

The discrepancy starts showing up as we get into the flight levels but the standby altimeter is reliable down low and that's where we would be using it if everything else was out.

That's about $330 so, yeah, that's expensive. At the local flying club I rent from (D.C. area), a C-172 (four seater) goes for about $135/hour. A flight instructor is probably not going to be more than an additional $25/hour. So you're paying about twice as much as it would cost here.

Absolutely.

If there were as few automobiles on the roads as there are planes in the sky, you would probably see the statistics reverse (or if there were as many planes in the sky as there are automobiles on the road).

It would be hard to argue that flying is safer on a trip-by-trip comparison. The flying environment is simply much less forgiving of any real problem. If you're driving and you don't like the weather (heavy fog, driving rain, blowing snow), just pull over. If you have an engine failure, coast to a stop.

I still believe that commercial flight is very safe and I feel very comfortable taking my seat to fly thousands of miles. The reliability and system redundancy has gotten us to a point where, if there any problems, they reveal themselves early before they become serious.

It's all about seniority. We have some FOs on the 767 who could actually hold the left seat (Captain) on the 767 but they know that, if they did this, they would not have the control over their life they enjoy now (i.e. going on the trips they want and not working holidays; having 18 days off per month vs. 12 days off when sitting on reserve). They might find themselves sitting reserve and needing a crash pad in NY so they can be there for short call (2 hour response required).

I have actually gotten Christmas off before and traded it to a fellow pilot who has small children at home. I don't have kids so it's not as hard on me to be away.

Other than the few experiences I've already related itt*, I haven't seen anything weird.

*(paraflares over Quantico at night that I mistook for landing lights on a large airplane bearing down on me; ultralight flying low over JFK this past August)

Contrails. Nothing weird about them. Moisture in the exhaust is visible when conditions (temperature, humidity) are right, just like with your car.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrail

lol @ the contrail phobia itt

Aircraft are separated by 1000 ft vertically or 5 miles laterally when en route, 3 miles laterally in the terminal environment.

Though it looked to you like the other plane was at your altitude, based on the lateral proximity it's my guess that you had 1000 ft separation. It is really hard to judge this with no reference while airborne. I have often commented to other pilots about a target on TCAS that shows 1000 ft separation but looks like it's at our altitude.

ATC will normally call out traffic passing that's within a few thousand feet of us, but occasionally one slips by and we see him on TCAS. There's no real concern as long as both airplanes are in level flight.

We will get TCAS alerts when a plane is climbing or descending towards us. Say we're at 15000' and ATC has cleared another plane to descend to 16000'. As he comes screaming down to at 4000 fpm, the TCAS has no way of knowing that he will stop at 16000' (and neither do we really, except for the trust we have in our fellow aviators ), so we get an audible "TRAFFIC! TRAFFIC!" alert. If we weren't already aware of the traffic, both heads in the cockpit snap down to look at the TCAS and see the amber diamond representing the alert. We then scan in the direction indicated. If not already alerted by ATC, we'd be asking him now.

I've often seen traffic passing as you describe and wonder if anyone in back notices. And you're right, neither crew is concerned. At night, we often flash landing lights at each other just to ensure we're both aware of each other.

Great thread W0X0F, the pics have made it even better.

At the risk of being redundant this is a great thread, thanks a lot.

thanks so much for those pics! very very cool.

how many diffierent radio frequencies do you tune to going from Nice to JFK? do you make sure to preset all of the freqs you expect to use to your radio before the flight?

so when approach says delta 82 heavy contact jfk tower 119.1 - you already have that as a preset? also you said you're only listening in your right ear and monitoring another frequency or two at the same time? does that get a little busy at time with overlapping transmissions?

this is probably like asking a random driver how he stays in the lane on the highway, but on every flight i've been on it seems like the pilots have put the plane down right on the centerline. is it rare to have a non centerline touchdown and is that a reason to go around?

also- how is a woman similar to a jet engine?

We have two radios, each with two frequency settings. We flip a switch between the frequencies to select which is currently being used (active). Comm 1 is used for ATC communications and Comm 2 is used for company communications.

Before pushback we have Ground control as the active frequency in Comm 1 and Departure control as the standby frequency (121.9 and 135.9 at JFK). Comm 2 will have Delta ramp frequency in the active and maybe Delta Operations in the standby frequency. After leaving the ramp, we set the emergency frequency, 121.5, also known as "Guard", as the active frequency in Comm 2 and we monitor it throughout the flight.

When ground switches us to Tower, we change the active frequency on Comm 1 to tower and leave departure control in standby, switching to it after takeoff when tower says "Contact Departure". From that point onward, when we get a new frequency, we set in the standby window and then flip the switch to make it active. This way we still have our previous frequency in case we are unable to establish comm on the new one (or if we heard it wrong). Then we can simply flip the switch to ask the previous controller to repeat the frequency.

Once we coast out, we set the air-to-air frequency in Comm 1 (123.45) and still have Guard in Comm 2. We monitor both as we cross the ocean. Communication with Oceanic control is done via HF radios every 10 degrees of longitude, where we give position reports and estimate for next fix.

Going to Nice, the facilities we talked to were:

JFK Ground
JFK Tower
NY Departure
Boston Center
NY Center
NY Oceanic
Santa Maria Oceanic
Gander Oceanic
Shanwick Oceanic
Brest Control
Marseilles Control
Bordeaux Control
Nice Approach
Nice Tower
Nice Ground

We don't usually talk to NY Center, NY Oceanic or Santa Maria Oceanic going to Nice, but this time we were south of 45 N for the first part of the crossing (probably to avoid winds) and that made it necessary.

For each of the "Control" frequencies, there may be several sectors we talk to, each with a discrete frequency and we are handed off from one to the other.

It can get busy and distracting and sometimes we miss calls because someone is transmitting on Guard, for example. In this case, we'll temporarily turn down Comm 2. Other distractions include FA calls on the intercom, which seem to always come at the most inopportune moments.

Coming back from Nice we had a situation with a 13 year old girl who passed out. This was while the Captain was on break and the lead FA (we call her the A-line at Delta, which has to do with how they designate their duties on the flight) called to notify us up front. Since the Captain's break was nearly over, I told her to go ahead and wake him and explain the situation to him. I felt that this would be easier and more effective than a lot of back and forth on the intercom.

The next step, if necessary, would be to contact UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) via SATCOM or, if we are not equipped with SATCOM, a radio patch via HF. A divert is a possibility in this case.

Nothing serious came of this situation because we found a doctor on board and the young girl regained consciousness, but it became quite a distraction as we were getting close to landing (about 45 minutes out) and we had a lot of radio calls being interrupted by calls on the intercom. Plus, we had to send all the information to the company via ACARS (name, age, address and seat number of the girl; name, address and seat number of the doctor). It was a lot of typing.

Landing off centerline won't cause a big problem as long as it's not too far off, but it's considered bad form. More than 5 feet will probably get you a snide comment or a condescending look from your fellow pilot.

On the takeoff roll, I'll often purposely offset from centerline a few feet just to avoid rolling the nosewheel over every single centerline runway light (we call it "killing turtles").

Does it have anything to do with Suck Squeeze Bang Blow?

I forgot to include this picture..the view from my room at the Radisson looking east toward Monaco.

The only time I ever noticed it was when I was flying United and listening to the ATC. (I know it's come up already in this thread, but I wish more airlines had this.) ATC called out "traffic at your 1 o'clock" and I was on the right side of the plane, so I looked out the window and a few seconds later I saw a plane go screaming by us in the other direction. Looking at a jet far overhead, or looking from a plane toward the earth, it's easy to forget how fast you're moving. Pretty hard to notice unless you're actively looking for it--I'm normally looking at the ground or reading/listening to music/etc.

Great pictures and thanks for the shout-out on your Nice trip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroperú_Flight_603

This is like the worst thing that could possibly happen. Night flight over water complete instrument failure/fictitious information. Maintenance put adhesive tape over the sensors that provide the data that makes the instruments work. Since its at top of the system it defeats redundancy if it fails.

In this situation what can you do? How much can you rely on your senses in a large airplane that you are climbing/descending accel/decelerating with 0 visual cues or instrument cues. pretty terrifying. Assuming you have the fuel would it be best to just climb to some safe altitude to a good weather area and scan for visual cues? were they experiencing vertigo?

I'm well behind in this thread (obviously) but I'm so glad you posted this. I've always kind of wondered if the numbers were random or whatever but I only ever think of it when I'm on the plane and don't have access to the internet.

Great thread!

When I saw your post, I thought of the one airplane I know of that has no rudder pedals, the Ercoupe, and it looks like that's what she's flying. This airplane came out around 1940 and was supposed to be the "car in the sky".

The Ercoupe was one of the first tricycle gear planes and solved one of the problems that taildraggers had: nosing over on landing. Steering in the Ercoupe is done with the control wheel, both in the air and on the ground (a linkage from the control wheel to the nosewheel accomplishes ground steering). In the air, the rudder is linked to the ailerons for coordinated movement, eliminating the need for rudder pedals.

But ailerons and rudders are sometimes used in opposite directions, specifically during a crosswind landing. Ercoupe handled this by incorporating very strong landing gear to allow the pilot to land his plane in a crab (i.e. not aligned with the runway as you normally would). After landing, it straightens out. Of course, you wouldn't want to try any extreme crosswind landings and I'm sure it had a limitation in this regard.

So, that eliminates one control, but this is still an incredible feat.

Would an onboard GPS system have saved them? With that they would have known their altitude, speed, and heading or does GPS need to be corrected somehow?

i don't know if they had GPS on 757s back in 96. I believe there is a backup radio altimeter that doesn't rely on the airdata. had they used that they had to have been able to stay airborne until the 707 came to guide them back. then it would have been an impressive but doable effort of "maintain visual separation" until landing.

This is the stuff of nightmares. The three most basic things you monitor for flight are pitch, power and airspeed. They are directly related to each other. Increase pitch and airspeed declines, unless power is added. Increase power and airspeed increases, unless pitch is increased. Lower the nose and airspeed increases, etc, etc.

Now start taking some of this information away and you're pretty vulnerable to vertigo. Your inner ear can only be trusted so far and will ultimately betray you. I'm assuming these guys had reliable engine indications and a reliable artificial horizon. But without a good airspeed readout, this would be a huge challenge if you have no visual references...not so much in a GA plane, but certainly in a transport category airplane.

The real insidious thing about this is not knowing which indications are reliable and which aren't. It's easy to get yourself into a PIO (Pilot Induced Oscillation) when continuously compensating for conflicting information. The oscillations invariably grow to the point of structural damage or loss of control.

Had this been daytime or even a moon-lit night, it might have ended better. This is one reason that checking the pitot and static sources during pre-flight is a big deal.

My own experience with this: on my first trip after I got my instrument rating (back around 1979), I flew a Cherokee 180 to Texas and back. I was looking for any clouds I could fly through. On the way back, during a flight from Nashville to Leesburg VA, I got into IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions) and, being a noob, neglected to throw on my pitot heat. I started getting some traces of ice and my pitot tube iced over (and I think we all know just how uncomfortable that can be).

My airspeed incicator made a sudden lurch from about 110 kts to 130 kts and back. Then it lurched again and then spun counter-clockwise back through zero and stuck on about 160 (which is beyond red-line in the 180). It was completely useless at this point and I was stuck with pitch and power...no airspeed. But this being a GA plane it wasn't quite the life threatening situation Flight 603 had. I was on instruments but I knew which instrument was bad so I could ignore it.

I diverted into Charleston, WV (or Charlie West as the airline guys call it; Charlie South is in SC) and flew the approach using only pitch and power. Afterwards I finally realized what had happened and I've never neglected pitot heat since then. (BTW, on airliners the pitot tubes are continuously heated in flight.)

GPS wouldn't have helped. It would have shown groundspeed but that's not too useful. And though I know that GPS is capable of providing altitude information, I've never seen this data provided by an on-board GPS.

Just keep coming back to this thread, and with the pics you posted, it's gotten even better... something I thought impossible!

One question, I was reading about what ATC you communicate with during a flight, amazed how many it is. Is there ever a language problem? I've travelled a fair bit, and there are certain countries where I find I really have to concentrate to understand what they are saying. Europe in general isn't a problem, but certain Asian and African countries, it's really hard to understand because of their heavy accent sometimes.

In a normal conversation it's obviously no big deal, but communicating with ATC, and btw, isn't there a lot of static? I would think it would be hard to understand sometimes, and any missed or misunderstood communication would be a big deal presumably.

I can get altitude information from the GPS in my helicopter but the odds I would (1) realize it was necessary to pull up, (2) remember that it was available to me in the heat of the moment and (3) be able to put it into my scan and use the information effectively considering everything else going on and considering it's not something I've ever done before is close to 0%.

you can tell just how impossibly confused they are in reading the CVR transcript. http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cvr961002.htm.

they were getting alarms for rudder ratio, mach trim, overspeed, stall warnings, and throughout had difficulty sensing if they were climbing or descending even though as wox said they had good engine data.

one of their altimeters was stuck on 9,700 feet and they thought it was accurate even when the stickshaker activated. got to the point where they radioed:

01:03:23 (23:06)
Copilot to ATC
WE HAVE ALL COMPUTERS CRAZY HERE...

01:03:34 (23:17)
Pilot
S***, WHAT THE HELL THESE AS****** HAVE DONE.

Yeah, even though English is the universal language of ATC, it can still be hard to communicate at times. The only place where I've experienced static is in South America. Even if there's no static, some of the controllers down there sound like they're talking into a tin can from across the room. Also, the HF radios (used when out of VHF coverage, i.e. over the ocean) can be flaky...sometimes loud and clear, other times full of static and weak.

A big thing we do to minimize miscommunication is to keep with standard phraseology. Every once in a while I'll fly with someone who doesn't seem to realize how important this is and they'll make a transmission like: "Amazonica, Delta 121, we'd like to come left about, oh, twenty or thirty degrees for the next, ah, fifty miles or so for weather ahead." The controller may have limited command of English and may not understand what is being asked. Proper procedure:

Delta: "Amazonica, Delta 121, request"
Amazonica: "Delta 121, say your request"
Delta: "Delta 121 request deviation East for weather"
Amazonica: "Delta 121, deviation approved. Report back on course."

Another obstacle to communication is the controller's accent, as you noted. It took me many trips to get to where I could understand the French controllers, particularly women (they can really make "Cleared direct" sound sexy). A big part of this is knowing what to expect, which also applies in the states to a certain extent (watch any new private pilot go blank when receiving a rapid fire clearance such as "November Two Eight Sierra, turn right heading three four zero to intercept the localizer, maintain two thousand until established, cleared ILS One Three Right, keep your speed up and contact the tower at the marker One One Niner point Three").

Once you know the routine, it's easier to 'hear' through the accent. For example, I'll look at the En Route chart for our segment over France and see that the fix at the next ATC boundary is LERGA, so I know there's a good chance that I'll be cleared direct to LERGA at some point. And when switching controllers, it's a help to know the name of the upcoming control facility. "Maastricht", in Germany, is a good example. First time I heard it, I wasn't sure what the controller had said, but the name is right there on my En Route chart. It does help to have another guy listening up too and we'll often look at each other and come to consensus about what was just said. When all else fails: "Bordeaux, say again for Delta Eight Two" and sometimes we have to ask them to spell out a fix (e.g. "Lima Echo Romeo Gulf Alfa").

do you think ATC might ever go from being based on vocal communication between pilots and centers to a text/instant message based system?

One of my first jobs out of college (late 70s) was as a programmer for The MITRE Corporation, which does a lot of work for the Air Force and FAA. I worked on a project called AERA (Automated En Route ATC) and it had text clearances as part of its concept. Using Mode S (which identifies particular airplanes) it's possible to have clearances directed to specific aircraft.

It seems like a great idea to me. Voice communication can be a serious weakness in the system, particularly in a busy terminal environment with bad weather in the area. In this situation, every plane is on the frequency asking for deviations around weather and tying up the radio. Pilots transmit over each other, producing loud squeals on the radio and sometimes the controller can only assume a transmission has been heard. It can get critical at times.

All star thread. I read about 60 pages before my eyes started to bleed. Awesome stuff.

Question: Someone relatively early in my life mentioned that on landing, you can tell if the pilot was former Navy or not. The person said that former Naval Aviators hit the runway relatively hard as if to try to catch a wire. A USAF or civilian pilot will coast over the run way for a few hundred meters and touch down gently.

Any truth to this?

Thanks again, awesome thread.

That is one thing the FAA wants to do with their NexGen system:

That's always the running joke after a hard landing, "Must be a Navy pilot!", but a lot of Naval aviators flew other than carrier-based planes. In fact, most of the Navy guys I've flown with came from the P-3, which is a four engine turboprop built by Lockheed (the civilian equivalent was the Electra...out of use by the airlines for about 30 years). P-3 pilots were all land based and they land a plane just like anyone else (sometimes good, sometimes bad).

I've also flown with several former F-14 pilots and they land just fine. So, it's really just an easy joke.

And in case there's any readers who aren't quite getting the gist of this, during a normal airline approach and landing we descend down the glideslope at about 700 fpm, give or take 100 fpm (depending on winds). At about 30 to 50 feet above the runway, we start transitioning to the landing pitch attitude (more nose up) and this decreases the descent rate while bleeding off airspeed. Ideally, we touch down with little or no descent rate and then standby for the applause from the passengers.

During a carrier approach and landing, on the other hand, the pilot maintains a constant descent rate right to touchdown which is quite a jolt. This firm landing helps dissipate some of the plane's kinetic energy and gives the greatest chance of catching a wire. At impact, the pilot advances the throttle to full power for the go around (called a bolter on the carrier) in case the tailhook doesn't catch a wire. It's only when the pilot realizes that he's stopped that he cuts the power.