No, they seem happy in the job. And I would expect more of just the outlook you express, i.e. after flying a high performance fighter how could driving an aerial bus possibly be satisfying? I've flown with many former F-14, F-15 and F-18 drivers and they don't seem to be miserable.

Several of them continue in the Guard while flying commercial, so those guys have the best of both worlds.

Some of the single seat fighter types have a harder time adjusting to the crew concept since they've been trained to be completely self-reliant airborne.

When I flew the New York/DC shuttle I saw lots of celebrities and politicians. Here some I can think off offhand:

Hillary Clinton
Bill Clinton
Art Buchwald
Joe Lieberman
Wolf Blitzer
Tom Brokaw
Queen Noor (beautiful woman!)
Jenna Bush
Barbara Bush
John McCain
Jonathan Lithgow
Diane Keaton
Dan Rather
Bob Woodruff

From an earlier post you mentioned there were 2 air marshals per international flight. To clarify is that on every single international flight? Or do they just use 2 people when they choose your specific flight?

Have you ever hit any birds in take off or in flight?

What is your opinion of single engine Cessna's crashing? it seem every time I hear of a small personal plane crashing its a single prop Cessna. Are they the Dodge's of the plane world. Is it the plane or the pilots causing the crash?

How many times have you been struck by lightning while flying?

If you're smart and keep a cool head and manage to use the radio, I would say you have a fairly good chance, at least as good as hitting your flush with two card to come. The plane can be set up to land itself and will even apply brakes after landing. It would be a wonderful experiment.

Here's the problem: have you ever tried talking someone through a simple computer procedure over the phone. For example, try explaining to someone who has never sent an attachment with email how to do it while on the phone. It can be an exercise in frustration as they are interpreting what you are saying from their world-view and you are expressing it from yours.

If even one little mix-up occurs things could go to hell so fast that there wouldn't be time to undo whatever gets done wrong (talking about landing the plane, not sending email).

Oh, and if the plane does not have autoland capability, you're a dead man. Maybe 2% chance you could get it on the ground without killing everyone.

I guess what I meant was a complete loop, ie you don't roll the plane midway and go back where you came from, you continue all the way and finish flying in the same direction as when you started the loop.

Unrelated point, I remember seeing a tv show years ago about some company in Russia maybe being able to simulate the weightlessness of space by flying and/or freefalling at a certain angle and David Coulthard was on the plane with his F1 car floating around. Is that saying anything to you?

It's virtually unheard of to have a mid-air between two airliners. Usually one of the airplanes involved is an airplane not on an instrument flight plan. Rarely does it have anything to do with speed; it's much more to do with relative position and the inability to see the other aircraft.

There are right-of-way protocols when airborne, just like when driving. The airplane to the right has right-of-way, all other things being equal. A balloon has right-of-way over all other aircraft; a glider has right-of-way over just about everything but a balloon, and so forth.

If approaching head-on, each aircraft should alter course to the right.

It's all covered in Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) 91.113 Right of Way Rules.

I think that's what he meant Jihad and it sounds like a great idea. My dad was a naval aviator and flew the A3D (All 3 Dead) on the Independence and later transitioned to the P2V.

The seniority lists have already been merged but we won't actually have the pilots mixing until we get a single operating certificate from the FAA, probably by February or March. Until then, they keep flying their planes and we fly ours (though many NW planes have already been repainted in Delta colors).

God, I hope we do better than USAir/America West. That's got to be a case study in how to screw up a merger. It's just short of armed warfare over there from what I've heard.

Offhand I can only think of two times and both were precautionary. One was a smoke indication in the baggage compartment that turned out to be a faulty sensor, and the other was a hydraulic failure which meant we couldn't put down the flaps and had to land at a much higher than normal speed.

Disfavor. Strongly. This would just accelerate the decline of my chosen profession

Maybe this particular controller on this particular day hated the French.

In any case, it was a rare event back then and probably never happens today. Most of the busy airports served by airlines see very little light airplane traffic, often a result of very high landing fees.

When I first started flying, I could go over to Dulles and practically have the airport to myself. They welcomed me because each time I landed added to their traffic count and helped justify their existence.

I remember one time (1980-ish) I went out at 3:30 am on a Saturday morning (couldn't sleep that night and it seemed like a good thing to do). I told the controller that I wanted to do some touch and goes. I will never forget the clearance I got: "Grumman 74026, you are cleared to do whatever you want, on any runway you want, for as long as you want, until further notice."

I went from one runway to another, doing touch and goes, low passes, stop and goes. It was great. After that, I parked and went up to the tower and watched the sunrise with the controller.

You guys really ask good questions. Birdstrikes are not that uncommon. My first was flying into Boston. On final approach I could see a lone seagull wheeling above the flight path. He would have been fine if he had stayed there. But a scared bird has a reactive evasive maneuver: tuck the wings and dive. We must have scared him because he dove and hit us right on the center windshield. Blood and feathers everywhere but not a safety of flight issue.

I was new to the job at that point and had no idea that there are reporting requirements for any birdstrike. The Captain was unaware also. We had the ramp personnel hose off the windshield and we continued with our day.

My next bird strike was on landing in a J-41. Just at touchdown I could see a Starling sized bird pass low to the left of the nose. Didn't feel anything and no indication of a strike, but on the post-flight walk around I could see bent blades in the engine intake and some blood and feathers.

I'm against it.

Probably a numbers thing. Cessna is the single most common light airplane out there. The plane is safe.

I've probably only verified a lightening strike a half dozen times. On the turboprops I used to fly, a lightning strike would manifest itself by a small burn hole for the entry, often on one of the prop blades, and a corresponding exit hole somewhere on the trailing edge of the wing.

Sounds bad, but the plane is not grounded in flight and no one even knows for sure that the lightning hit.

Still possible theoretically, but it's never been done.

NASA has done this for years to help train astronauts. The plane they use is a Boeing 707 (or one of its variants) and it's nicknamed The Vomit Comet. Ron Howard made use of this plane to film some of the scenes for Apollo 13, i.e. those guys not only looked like they were in zero G in the film, they really were!

I've done this myself in light aircraft. With my brother in the right seat, I had him place the aircraft manuals in his lap. Then I dove the airplane to near redline speed and pulled the nose up, zooming up and then nosed it over just as I approached stall speed. This noseover maneuever (just like the Vomit Comet uses) produces the zero G and if done aggressively, produces negative G, as my brother saw when the books floated up out of his lap.

Big difference is that I can sustain the zero G for a matter of seconds. On the Vomit Comet, they can sustain it for a few minutes.

Now that I'm caught up, here's an aerial shot of NY I took almost 3 years ago. (and I still owe someone my 'near-accident stories'...coming soon)

awesome picture. somehow this thread keeps getting better.

is there any chance solar panels on a rooftop can cause enough glare to distract you while landing? on a single house, or on every house in a particular community (I live just south of sfo and always wondered about this)?

Don't mean to hijack (get it) this thread, but they tested this on mythbusters. Jamie and Adam each had to land a flight simulator using only intructions from a flight instructor. Can't remember what happened, only that

/hijack and back to this great thread.

Have you noticed your new title?

In response to the solar panel thing, I remember the green laser pointers being a newsworthy subject a relatively long time ago. Any experiences/stories?

I'm not sure if it is the winds or whatever...but I always remember the landing at Burbank as being extremely rollercoaster like everytime.

Also the Delta/NW merger was awesome. My dad was a captain for NW and retired several years ago(right before they tried to gut the pensions). I lost my flight priveledges at like age 23...but I guess Delta has sick employee benefits. Just recently found out I can now fly for free, besides taxes, anywhere in the world Delta/NW goes.

Questions:

What typically are the best flights(times) to fly on for long distance flights (aka the ones that are more likely not to be fully booked) Delta I guess always bumps non-revs to first if there are seats open.

During typical turbulence the pilot just says "its gonna get bumpy, turning on the fasten seatbelt" but during a recent flight after all that the pilot suddenly came and and was all "flight attendants to your seats, flight attendants to your seats" - Do you guys know how rough the turbulence is going to be before you fly through? or is it just vague as in level 1,2,3,4,5.

Also my dad used to do the flights out to Grand Cayman back in the day which I guess involved some epic layovers. You ever fly any routes where it was known as kind of a party route?

When the autopilot is on what do you pilots do? Are you checking so everythings okay all the time or ? And since you started flying how much has airtraffic gone up?

They did a flight similator on Mythbusters and Adam was able to land the plane no problems just listening to directions from the flight controller. The flight controller was more estatic than Adam was.

Cool story. Why do you say foreign ownership would make your career obsolete faster? FWIW I think it doesn't make sense and is a bs law but maybe I"m missing something.

The Alaska Airlines flight that happening in Cali like a decade ago. I remember that the pilot flew the airline out over the ocean while "they tried to solve the problem".

Did they do that because they knew it was likely they were going down?
this was the first crash for that airline..involved some bolt that controlled the piece on the rudder which causes the front of the plane to go up or down.

When there is a delay at the airport and the pilot tells me over the intercom that hes going to try to "make it up in the air", is he just bull****ting me?

OP - Nice thread.

Regarding the "too hot and tough to breathe" bit before flights: This happens on the vast majority of flights when it's hot or warm outside. It might not be a situation where everyone is dripping with sweat. But it can be an issue just to breathe comfortably.

I've seen passengers mention it to the attendant before. They get told that there is nothing they can do...it will get better once we get moving, etc. This is common. Basically they don't/can't do anything and it happens all the time.

Not blaming you for this of course. But it seems like you might not have been aware. I hate it worse than turbulence actually because I think I'm kind of over-sensitive to that type of thing.

My strategy is to try to be one of the very last people onto the plane but I think that's a pretty good strategy anyway.

Is it somewhat common to try to land and then have to pull up due to wind or whatever and then try again? We had a bad flight two years ago where the pilot was pulling in to try to land 3 straight times. We would feel the turbulence and it was pretty scary, she would get scared (I assume) and we would pull out due to the storm and then we would circle around and try again. Eventually we gave up and landed at a nearby airport instead (instead of BWI she took us to Dulles).

Conclusion:
Everyone de-planed and then they were going to fly back to BWI but a lot of people wouldn't get back on the plane. My GF was pretty freaked and having a weird panic attack with weird hyperventilating breathing or something which had never happened to her before. So I had to rent a car to drive up to BWI to pick up our luggage because she just couldn't get back on a plane at that point and they wouldn't let us have our luggage at Dulles.