I hadn't even thought of the possibility that it might have been intentional. The article even said that at one point the pilots were trying to move the control column in opposite directions (i.e. the Captain was having to fight against the FO trying to push down). Well, I'm sure the Indian authorities are over all it.

^^
In the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, "Somebody's got some 'splainin' to do!

Listening to ATC, I just heard a pilot ask "how long is final today" and the controller responded by saying 12 miles. Can you explain why he asked and what is meant by "final"? Thx.

final is def "final approach"... I have a guess on the 12 mile bit but prob better left to an actual pilot

It's almost surely the point where planes are turning from base (flying at a right angle to the runway) to final (where the plane has made its final turn and is flying straight to the runway). The pilot is probably asking so he has an idea of when he'll land.

I was thinking it has something to do with how communication/decisions are treated. ie, during "final" something changes from before the plane is in final.

I'm guessing, but there's probably a very long final instrument approach published, that the controllers cut short if the weather is good, or traffic is light.

Everyone who chimed in is correct! The pilot is just asking how far out they'll be before the controller lines them up for the straight-in (final) segment of the approach. It's nice to know for planning purposes. For example, if you're at 5000' and the controller gives you a descent to 2000', it's nice to know what he has mind, a short approach or a "tour of the countryside." That will help us decide between a leisurely descent or the use of spoilers to get down quickly.

If a controller wants a really short approach, they'll usually tell us just that: "Descend to 2000', plan short approach." At busy airports like Atlanta, we can get a good idea of how long final will be by listening up and watching our TCAS. We're usually following someone, so we can just watch what they do with the plane ahead of us.

12 miles isn't unusual at busy airports (JFK, IAD, ATL, ORD), but it can stretch to 20 miles if ATC is really getting backed up. If the weather is good and traffic permits, they will sometimes leave it to the pilots: "Cleared for the visual approach, Runway 26L." This leaves the decision about when to turn base and final up to the pilot. We don't usually turn final much closer than the outer marker (about 5 miles out).

It's really about when we configure the plane for landing. You feel kind of dumb lowering the landing gear and flaps and then finding out you've got another 20 miles to fly before landing. So now you're tooling around with all the unnecessary drag out there, burning extra fuel.

[QUOTE=W0X0F;23285398 We're usually following someone, so we can just watch what they do with the plane ahead of us.
[/QUOTE]


Aren't you listening to what they are doing with the plane in front of you?

Do non ADS-B equipped aircraft show up on TCAS?

Yeah, "watch" was not a good choice of verb. We can listen to the radio and we can see how far ahead he is on TCAS.

Any plane with a transponder will show up on TCAS (and that's every plane operating into the airports we fly into). It's very rare that a plane won't have mode C (altitude reporting capability with the transponder), but we do occasionally see this en route and it's usually a GA plane with a basic transponder. In this case, since altitude is unknown, we might get a spurious TCAS advisory even though we've got miles of vertical separation.

Obviously you can ignore any advisory if you're in the cruise at say FL340 and the "conflicting" aircraft is a GA bugsmasher but what information does TCAS provide you with to make that decision? Do you get a confirmation of type/tail number, ICAO 24-bit code or what?

If the bogey has no altitude reporting, the only information we have is relative position. For altitude reporting aircraft, TCAS displays the relative altitude in hundreds of feet (our TCAS lets us select absolute altitude if we want it; e.g. "F370" for Flight Level 370). If the bogey is climbing or descending (again, for altitude reporting aircraft only), there will be an up or down arrow next to the altitude to show its trend.

When flying above 18,000' we're in Positive Control Airspace and everyone up there is required to have Mode C (altitude reporting) capability so we wouldn't worry too much about a TCAS symbol without an altitude (though we'd still be looking for anything at our altitude). I can't remember having this occur while in PCA, so maybe TCAS filters these out.

TCAS does filter what it displays based on altitude. For the cruise setting, it will display aircraft within 40 miles of us and with +/-2700' of our current altitude. We can open this window by selecting "Above", which will show targets from -2700' to +8700', or "Below", which will set the filter at -8700' to +2700' (we sometimes descend at 4000 fpm, so it's a good idea to open up the window of what's being displayed).

OK... and do you get that displayed just as a list of contacts or do you get a pseudo radar display giving relative position? (would need the other contacts to be Mode S equipped I believe)

Yeah, it's a radar-type display. Mode S is not required, just Mode C. Our TCAS sends out a query and the transponders on other aircraft send a reply (the same way they do when interrogated by ground-based radar for ATC).

I'm getting ready to head to LAX (pushback at noon) and I'll take a picture of the TCAS displays. There's actually two of them in our plane. The main one is a combination TCAS/Wx Radar display. Nearby TCAS targets will also be displayed on our VSI (Vertical Speed Indicator)...a really inferior display.

There are other configurations that I've seed on a few of our 757s that incorporate the TCAS targets on the HSI (Horizontal Situation Display, which shows the route of flight).


(P.S. I like your avatar. Tribute to Leslie Nielsen, right?)

Terrific! Thanks for taking the trouble.

Yes indeed

Btw, what do you prefer from a purely flying point of view, a flight from JFK to LAX or SAN or a transatlantic flight of similar duration? I'm guessing the workload is greater on the domestic flight as you're always likely to be in traffic.

As promised, here's a screen shot of a TCAS display. As luck would have it, I got one of the 757s (an old TWA plane) that uses the HSI for the TCAS display. I have the HSI on the 40 mile range and you can see two targets displayed: at 10 o'clock and about 15 miles is an airplane at our altitude and climbing; at 11 o'clock and 10 miles is a plane 1,100' below us and descending.

Neither of these planes was called as traffic by ATC and I wouldn't expect them to; they're not a concern to us. (BTW, you can see our position is about 20 miles SE of Allentown,PA and about 10 miles NE of Willow Grove NAS (KNXX). You can also see that we've got a 37 knot wind on the nose.

(Sorry about the reflection; I couldn't seem to get a shot without some glare.)

What do you think of this?

http://www.patricksaviation.com/videos/SUPERGT/3384/

Just finished reading this wonderful collection of stories. Thanks for your recommendation. I think I may try one of his novels next.
While flying is so much safer today than it was just a few decades ago, I wonder if you ever experienced any of the problems the author describes. For example have you had cases of cargo or baggage shifting because it was not properly restrained? Or cargo manifested as 5,000 lbs when in fact it was 5,000 kilos?

Just watched this video about people shooting really powerful lasers into pilots eyes while trying to land. kind of worries me that there are this many cases of it. why would the average person want to do that? or is this another tactic of some sort of terrorists trying to make planes crash?

have you been informed of this w0x0f?

http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749...lanes-23407336

Just listened to this JFK chatter; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyO-bWGxWBU. Have a few questions.

Have you ever got lost on the apron/taxiway at an unfamiliar airport, due either to unclear directions or not following ATC instruction properly? Have you ever had a telling off from ATC, maybe as a result of this? Is there particular controllers you would know to banter with at certain airports?

Also, what is the most pissed off you have ever heard ATC at a pilot and what was the cause?

I am aware of this issue, but there has been no information directly sent to me about it by the company. I actually own one of these hand-held lasers myself. I got it after visiting friends in Hawaii and attending one of their "star parties." This is a monthly meeting of the Hawaiian Astronomical Society to star gaze all night long on the north shore (near Dillingham Field, for anyone familiar with Oahu). The small laser is used for pointing out particular stars to fellow gazers...much more effective and exact than just using your index finger. This group was very aware of air traffic and wouldn't point skyward if there were any planes overhead (air traffic is rare on the north shore).

Though the clip you included mentions that they've caught and prosecuted some individuals, I haven't heard of any such successes. I hope it's true and that they give them jail time.

I had never considered that these might be terrorist activities, i.e. intentional attempts to bring down aircraft. I always just assumed it was kids (or very irresponsible adults) playing with their toy.

Here's two more TCAS related pics. This first shot shows TCAS traffic depicted on my HSI set at the 20 mile scale. These shots were taken near Las Vegas and two TCAS targets are shown. The close one is 1500 above us; the far one (almost off the top of the display) is 1600 feet below us.

The second shot shows the same two planes as seen from the cockpit (there is also a 3rd plane out there that didn't show on TCAS either because it's more than 20 miles away or more than 2700' below our altitude.

The reason I include these shots is to show how hard it is to see other traffic. If it wasn't for the contrails it would be very hard to pick out the close one and impossible to pick out the far one.



(FYI: the CLARR intersection is at 35°40′32″ North 115°40′47″ West
in case you want to check Google Earth)