"...and where would you like your pizza delivered?"
"15,000ft"
"....."

Yeah, you can get rental cars, reservations, tee times, food, "call my wife and let her know to pick me up," whatever. Not sure if they expect you to buy fuel from them for it or not.

Some even have a courtesy car that you can book and use free of charge.

Now another one:
SINGAPORE -- A Qantas Boeing 747 with 431 people on board landed safely in Singapore late Friday after an engine caught fire minutes after it took off from the city-state, the airline and a passenger said.

Probably not debris, because it takes a lot for them to ground an entire fleet like that.

Very weird, clearly just a strange coincidence.

I feel kinda bad for RR now, they're gonna get torn apart

I never felt comfy on an Airbus for some reason, especially after the AA crash over Queens NY shortly after 9-11. The pilots used agressive rudder control or something after take off which sheared the tail fin off... WHAT? (sure I am off on technicalities of this but the gist is there...) After seeing the Boeing 707 or whatever do the barrel roll YEARS AGO I always questioned Airbus behind that AA incident... I have flown on the A320, 330 and 340... Very impressed with the insides of the 330 and 340. But if it aint Boeing I aint particularly happy about going...

do you think the anti union practices the airlines commit are having or will have any signifficant impact on safety of flights?

I would respectfully disagree with the author.

Almost every point he makes in his little screed smacks of sour grapes. I've been there and I can empathize with his frustration with the status quo, but almost everything he writes is nonsense.

Take this paragraph, just as one example:

While it may be true that a pilot group will negotiate for better pay (and work rules, etc) during a time of "increasing profits", I would ask "When else would you do it?" But the next sentence which has the pilots being entitled to 115% of the airline's profits during an ensuing downtown in the economy is just a load of crap. I've seen this scenario play out more than once and what actually happened is that the pilots made huge concessions from the legally binding contract, i.e. they "gave back" to the company. And why wouldn't they — this company is their company. They are tied to it in ways that management is not. They have a strong vested interest in the long term viability of the company.

What was sad is that these concessions now became the contract language and once the economy rebounded, there was no associated rebound of the pilots' compensation. In fact, at this point what was heard by the pilots is that "a contract is a contract".

I won't waste time rebutting this article line-by-line, and I know it will strike a chord with many readers who have no inside knowledge of the industry or the profession.

Actually, it's more likely on the "young" planes than it would be on a plane that has years of service. Flight testing is very thorough, but if there are any design flaws, they'll usually become apparent in the first years of service. (Same thing goes for new types of jet engines.)

Known as the "bathtub curve" I believe. Because if you plot the number of failures against the age of the subject, you get a plot similar in shape to a bathtub.

Hi W0X0F,

Very nice thread I have read it from front to back, thanks for doing it. Posted earlier in this thread but neglected to get your opinion. I believe you said you would like to fly the Airbus because of cockpit automation etc. But which airplane maker would you rather RIDE in if that makes sense? I just see Boeing as the safer plane maker though difference between the two safety and design wise might be very marginal...

Any experience with experimental aircraft? Seems like the way to go if you have plans on owning your own airplane. My old man flies for a major carrier and recently purchased a Kitfox. We've been flying on weekends and its a blast. Here's a video I took a few weeks ago of us out in the desert.

http://www.wimp.com/emergencylanding/

W0F0X, -that is how I hear your name-

From the clip can you tell what type of engine problem the plane was experiencing? Have you experienced anything similar?

If the engine had not restarted the first time what would the options be? It seems to me that the tree lined road was too narrow and / or too short. Do you think it might have been possible to pull a last second 90degree turn to the right to land on the adjacent road that he ended up on if they hadn't gained a few seconds of thrust?

The pilot waited 20 seconds before attempting to restart the engine, apparently after he was cued by the moving prop. What is the checklist one goes through when faced with engine failure in a plane such as this? Did they make a mistake by not trying to restart the engine immediately after failure? At the 54-55 second mark each guy flips a switch, can you tell what they are doing?

Can we discern the relationship between pilot and copassenger?

I assume that the man on the left was the student and the right was the instructor judging from the apology. It seems strange to me that the instructor wouldn't take control of the plane during a situation such as this.

I just noticed that the guy in yellow had a stick of his own, although he took both hands off it at one point. I don't understand how dual sticks operate. Who was in control the morest?

That landing seemed to be so soft!

I can't believe he had the presence of mind to pull off the road like that. Icing on the cake.

p.s. fan of all 31 pages

Seems very likely that this airplane is some sort of ultralight. If I had to guess it was some kind of of fuel starvation issue or possibly they ran out of fuel and were getting some final dribbles out of the tank during periodic restarts. The fact that the engine would periodically restart and then run again indicates it was most likely some kind of fuel issue rather then some other engine problem.

The video is too low a quality to see what kind of other landing options he had exactly if he didn't have a few brief seconds of thrust to get to his preferred landing area. He seemed to be losing altitude pretty quick and keeping his airspeed up pretty good my guess is he still would have made the road where he landed.

The guy was doing the right thing and rather then dicking with a failing engine he was busy flying the airplane to an emergency landing. He was low and didn't have much time to waste. Many pilots are killed when they start diagnosing engine problems and forget to continue flying the airplane.

The dual sticks move exactly identical and are physically linked to one another via cables. If one guy held the stick with all his might the other guy would not be able to fly the plane on his stick because it too would be stationary. Hard to say what the relationship was but student/pilot is certainly possible. Could be they were just friends too. In the US the FAA puts many rules on 2 seat ultralights so instructor/student is likely unless it is registered as a light sport aircraft or experimental aircraft.

Please note that I am not a pilot.

But apparently you stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

While flying at night, I have always wondered what purpose the lights on the wings really serve? Is it like the headlights on a car? I have noticed they are not turned on until right before takeoff and on final approach. Do they somehow help the pilots see? I also noticed they are turned off for taxing.

In the UK at least, I believe it's mandatory for aircraft to keep landing lights on in the climb out until above FL100 (or something like that). I'm sure OP will have done a few departures from the UK in darkness so can correct me.

There are several different sets of lights on an airplane:
• Nav lights
• Taxi lights
• Landing lights
• Wing illumination lights (aka ice observe lights)
• Strobe lights

The Nav lights are customarily left on at all times, even at the gate. These are the wingtip lights (red on the left wing; green on the right wing) and a white light on the tail. These help in determining the direction of flight of another plane. If the red light is on the right, the plane is coming at you. I've heard a few mnemonics for this: "Red, Right, Returning" or "Red, Right, Wrong" (i.e. coming at you).

Taxi lights are used any time we are moving on the ground. Although useful at night for illuminating the taxiway, the main reason we use them is to make us more visible to other aircraft. If we're at a stop on the ground, the taxi lights are turned off...a clear signal to everyone (including ground traffic such as baggage carts and fuel trucks) that we're not moving. Before moving again, we turn them on and this alerts anyone around that we're getting ready to move.

Ice observe lights illuminate the wing surface and can be used to check for ice build-up.

Strobe lights are used from take-off until exiting the runway after landing. They are sometimes turned off when flying in clouds at night as they can become distracting and disorienting.

When we take the runway for takeoff, all lights are turned on for maximum visibility (including ice observe lights) and kept on until we reach 18,000'. They make a huge difference, even during daylight. On many planes the landing lights are on the nose gear, so after gear retraction they aren't illuminating anything.

The reason we use 18,000' is because this is the base of Positive Control Airspace within the U.S. Once above that altitude, all other aircraft are on instrument flight plans and there should be no rogue VFR traffic. We will sometimes flash the lights above 18,000 if ATC calls converging traffic...kind of a friendly "hello" to the passing traffic.

We can taxi safely without the taxi lights. All taxiways have blue edge lighting, which is adequate for maintaining position, and at bigger airports the taxiways have green centerline lighting. We could also takeoff and land without lights of any kind. The runway edge (and sometimes centerline) lights provide guidance for takeoff and perspective for landing.

Outside the U.S., the altitude for Positive Control Airspace varies. I've seen ranges from 3000' on up to 18,000', depending on the country. Most European countries have a PCA floor of around 6000', give or take a thousand or so. I'm not aware of any specific country's lighting requirements, but our custom of keeping all lights on below 18,000' satisfies even the most restrictive.

Boston may have been the nearest suitable airport for reasons not readily apparent. There may have been closer airports that might be used in a very time-critical emergency (e.g. fire or smoke), but the Captain (possibly in conjunction with his dispatcher) decided that Boston what they needed (long enough runway; Crash/Fire/Rescue capability; decent weather). Though JFK would certainly fill the bill too, it's at least another 25-30 minutes of flight time.

If at all possible, we like to land at our scheduled destination. It just eliminates so many problems to get the passengers to the place they actually paid to get to. The weather at Bristol may have been below that required for the ILS there.

A category I ILS typically requires visibility of 1/2 mile or 1800' RVR (Runway Visual Range...measured by instruments on the ground by the runway). If the weather at Bristol was less than 1800 RVR, the plane would have to circle and wait for improvement or divert to an alternate.

The alternate, Midlands in this case, might have better weather or it might have capability for Cat II or III ILS which allows lower visiblity for the approach. In the U.S., a Cat III ILS is good down to 600' RVR. We don't land at 0 visibility in the U.S. though I believe they do it at Heathrow, for example.

The cross country flights were my favorite part of learning to fly. To take off and point the nose of the aircraft away from the home 'drome was exciting. You will undoubtedly have some visual references as well as electronic navaids for your route of flight. Good flight planning ahead of time will help reduce your anxiety about this flight. Pick some easily identifiable landmarks and make sure you completely understand how to interpret your VOR indicator. I think once you do the trial run with your instructor you'll feel much better about it.

I don't have the expertise to comment on this. I know there have been instances of wings suffering damage due to flying debris (tires exploding, e.g.) and I've never heard of a wing failing because of this.

Hey W0X0F,

Hope you had fun in Florida. Since that is where I am from, I found this news interesting. There is a hotly contested proposal to build a new 8000' runway at FLL. In order to fit it in, the runway would be 75' taller at its east end, and would actually be elevated at that end as an overpass over US1.

Initially I was shocked by this, thinking about the photo of the runway you have posted several times that looked like it was built in a sinkhole.

However it was pointed out that this is actually a grade of less than 1.5%, and that several of the runways at ATL are graded. While I have landed on 26R many times and have then taxied around 8R on the "exit ramp", I always thought the elevation change was a result of the ramp being graded, not the runway.

My question is if there are any commercial airports that have runways graded over 1% (the grades at ATL are all .8-.9%), and if these grades have any effect on operations for the flight crew?

Sad day for my alma mater today:

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/...est+Palm+Beach

Any objections to full-body scanners?

Our Op Specs prohibit the use of any runway with a grade in excess of 2% and I don't know of any that approach this. No one would build such a runway at a commercial use airport because of the limitation it would impose.

The grade on some of the Atlanta runways is visually discernible. On a couple of them, the departure end kind of looks like a little ski jump as you line up for takeoff. Also, they are not uniformly sloped. Runway 8R has a 1% downslope at the departure end; Runway 26L (same piece of pavement, opposite end) has a 0.4% downslope at the departure end. There's got to be some upslope somewhere in between (Rolle's Theorem?).

The only effect on operation of the aircraft is that extra power is required on some taxiways as we go uphill. At Cairo there is about a 175' elevation difference between the runway and our parking spot. It's mainly noticeable because the airplane wants to accelerate as we taxi, even with thrust at idle. When we taxi out, we use both engines because of this grade.