I remember I sat at work a few weeks ago and read his entire thread, it is fantastic, thanks for doing it

While I'm aware my question doesnt compare to other questions with some kind of intelligence/knowledge behind them, I cant resist the chance to ask it as myself and a friend were debating of this the other day when flying back from Vegas

If a normal Boeing 747 or similiar type of large people carrier suddenly lost all of its engines....what happens?

We basically argued whether or not the plane would basically fall out of the sky in a very voilent fashion, or the plane would have quite a decent amount of glide time, where if possible you could get the plane to land, albeit very poorly

Thanks and I look forward to more thoughout questions from the rest of you

Here's an example of just that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9

China Clipper cites a good example to answer your question, though this example ended with a successful in-flight restart of all four engines (rather than a deadstick landing).

One of the fears of first time fliers is that the plane will drop like a rock if the engine(s) quit. But it's just the airflow over the wings that provides the lift and if the engines aren't running, you can still get airflow if you're willing to trade off some altitude (of course, you can't maintain your altitude...there's no free lunch in aviation).

Airspeed is life and the descent rate can be arrested at the right time (just before touchdown...or impact) by raising the nose and bleeding off the excess airspeed. If timed right, the plane can make a normal touchdown.

There have been several instances of this happening with large aircraft and Wikipedia has a good collection of deadstick landing references.

In Zürich (were you seem to be flying into regularly), there have been severe disputes over the forced change of approach directions due to noise restrictions imposed by Germany. There have been some large protests by home owners / residents who are now subject to the noise and the danger of living in the landing zone. As they are not getting further on the political / law side, sadly there have also been a few incidents involving lasers. (They are obviously only trying to get the (media) attention and are not trying to bring the planes down.)

I've seen this before; I think it's at least a few years old. Impressive and he had the benefit of altitude. I think I heard he was at 9000' when he was seven miles out. That altitude gives you lots of options.

Any deadstick landing is a job well done.

I've had instances where the taxiway markings have been confusing or ambiguous and I've asked Ground Control for progressive taxi instructions. When you tell them this, they'll kind of lead you by the hand to where you're going.

There have probably been a handful of times where I've made a wrong turn while taxiing. As long as you don't cross onto an active runway, about the worst you'll get is a scolding from Ground Control (and let me tell you, those words can hurt).

I've never had ATC really go off the handle with me. I've detected frustration in their voices as they deal with some pilots who are screwing something up, but the controllers are a very professional group and it's extremely rare to hear one of them get angry.

I'm sure it's happened somewhere, sometime, but I don't have any first-hand stories to tell. If you've really done something bad, the worst thing you can hear is something like: "November Two Seven Xray, I've got a phone number for you to call after parking. Advise ready to copy."

Those calls rarely go well.

Is this ever excusable? i.e not knowing where Toronto is?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-HrT...eature=related

Thanks so much, W0X0F, for patiently answering so many questions over the course of so many months. I just read the whole thread in three days, and I really enjoyed it.

Listening to United's Channel 9, I'm impressed that seldom does the pilot on the radio (is that the non-flying pilot?) stumble, but a week ago I heard one in the cockpit of our 777 who seemingly could never come up with his flight number when he needed it. Every ten minutes, when handed off to another controller, he announced himself as "United -- uhhhhhh -- nine zero six."

Do you have a trick for remembering your flight number, before you make a radio call?

I've been on the sending end of that message; I think "rarely" is a bit optimistic. I had a Cessna try to cross a runway with another plane on short final after receiving and reading back hold short instructions. She was in tears when she called the tower and heard she was getting deviated (fortunately, I didn't have to take that call).

It's kinda meh, imo. It's understandable that a departure controller in the American west doesn't remember where "CYYZ" is (it's been twenty years since the Rush song, amirite?), but I don't think I'd follow up with "What US state is Toronto north of?" on frequency.

I doubt I could have given you even an approximate location for Toronto before I started flying. Like many Americans, I'm pretty ignorant of the location of cities worldwide. For example, I knew Accra was in Ghana, but I couldn't point to the location of either the country or the city on a map before I flew there. Nothing like flying to a city to permanently fix its location in your mind.

BTW, that video had this link to another amusing aviation video (really just audio) about a controller tricking a pilot.

Yes, it's the non-flying pilot who handles the radios, though the flying pilot might do it when, for example, the non-flying pilot is off making a PA, talking on the intercom with the flight attendants, or using COM #2 to talk to Operations or to get the ATIS.

Most pilots keep the flight number somewhere in plain sight, usually right on a little clipboard which is in the center of the control wheel. When I flew the J-32, many of us had the technique* of setting the flight number in on the #2 ADF, which was rarely ever used in that plane. When answering a radio call, if you found yourself searching your brain for the flight number, you could just look at the ADF.

On many of my flights in the 767 or 757, I set the flight number in as the Decision Altitude (DA) on my HSI (Horizontal Situation Indicator). This way it's always right in front of me.

Flight numbers do tend to blur when you're having a long day with multiple flights. Usually it starts to get firmly fixed in your mind by the time you've climbed out and contacted Departure Control.

-------------
*"Technique" is a word used a lot in the airline world for a procedure or action which is not specifically required or mandated by the company, but which has gained widespread acceptance as a good method. We hear this a lot in simulator training, when an instructor might say something like, "Now, this is technique only, but a good way of handling this is to..."

Is that like getting violated?

Something like that. My line of thought with the word was "She had a pilot deviation, ergo she was deviated."

Yeah, you're going to have to explain this one. I clicked the link - but even after reading this thread I missed the joke.

The information about an airport (weather, runways/approaches in use, etc.) is recorded and broadcast as an ATIS. When the ATIS is re-recorded, it is given a new code that goes down the alphabet. Pilots are supposed to have listened to this broadcast and give the ATIS code when they first contact approach control or the tower.

The Southwest pilot didn't listen to the broadcast and planned to parrot back the whatever ATIS code the approach controller asked to verify. If he had listened to the ATIS, he would have said something like "We only have information Charlie" in response to approach's "Verify infomration Delta."

Lol at that. Lazy airline guys gettin' soft- they have their COM 1 and COM 2 and so on and so forth. Plug in the damn ATIS so you know that tower is on the secondary frequency or whatever! Not that I have ever called the Teterboro tower eight times and got nothing back from them.

I am a student pilot who flies mostly Cessnas. I started flying when I was 11 and flew continuously up through age 15 or so. By that time I had accumulated about 220 hours, all dual. I flew out of Millionnaire and I guess they determined that it was more profitable to keep G5's on the ramp instead of Skyhawks. I stopped flying for a while and I never did get to solo. Then, one day a few months ago, I got the bug to start flying again. I called up a flight school at Greenwood Lake airport in Northern New Jersey. I soloed a couple months ago and I will be getting my license soon.

I have made a couple cross countries so far to Allentown and Scranton, PA. I always made sure to have the ATIS ready to go in COM 2 so that I could call tower and tell them I have the correct information. I heard a bunch of private jets always calling up the tower saying,"...inbound for landing with information." I guess the tower just assumed they had gotten the updated ATIS.

My question is this: I have the practical experience obviously with about 250 hours and 20 solo hours, but I need to take the written test. I purchased Gleim Aviation's online ground school course where they provide all of the outlines and practice tests. It is a lot of information but I have been told that if I just study hard for about a week I should pass the written no problem. I am in college now and I look at some of the characters who have their Private and if they can do it, I certainly should be able to. Do you have any tips on taking the written? What do you think of Gleim? Would you say the more advanced writtens increase in difficulty or is it just different information?

LOL! You're right, I should have explained this. When I listened to it late last night, I laughed and it didn't even occur to me that it would need an explanation. I can see now how this would be confusing (and not very funny) to someone unfamiliar with the procedures and the lingo. SopoRific did a great job of explaining it. Essentially, the Southwest guy got caught in a little white lie.


To be fair, we've all done this (or something similar) at times. It may be that this particular guy makes a habit of it and never checks the ATIS, but I'm more inclined to believe that he just forgot to check this time.

On the plane I fly we normally send for the ATIS over ACARS and it will come back within 20-30 seconds. We can read it or print it out. If I get switched over to Approach Control before actually receiving the ATIS, I dial in the new frequency and, if I happen to hear someone else mention the current ATIS, I will use that same identifier when I check in.

If I was in the situation in this clip, where the controller said "Do you have information Tango?", I would reply "We're picking it up now."

The other technique you mentioned, where a pilot checks in saying "...with the information" comes from the pre-ATIS days and still applies at some smaller airports that don't have ATIS (if any of those even exist anymore). This was a way of relieving the controller of repeating the current weather to every pilot who checks in. Good technique at an airport without ATIS is to monitor the Tower frequency for a minute or two to pick up this information from other pilot exchanges and then tell the controller on initial contact that you have the information. However, it's not an appropriate check-in if there is ATIS available.

Maybe I'm being a little naive but why would you not want to listen to the ATIS when there's very often some extra procedural information tacked on (eg. in the case of lo-viz or maybe icing conditions) that the controller may not give you direct?

Who said anything about not wanting to listen to the ATIS? Of course we want the ATIS, and we pick it up every time without exception, but there are times when we don't have it in hand when it's time to check in with the Approach controller.

I would say that over 90% of the time we've picked up the ATIS when we're more than a hundred miles out.

OK, got you. I was thinking maybe the crew were being a little lazy in the knowledge that ATC would give them the salient points on contact.

W0X0A, you often fly near Las Vegas. How clearly have you seen Groom Lake and its air traffic? I know that the secret base there, Area 51, isn't depicted on the sectional charts, and the surrounding Restricted Area is rather large so that I'm guessing you can spot it in the distance only if you know what to look for.

I once had an ex-Air Force guy point out the general area you're talking about, but we don't fly close enough to see anything.

[I've got 3 layovers in Vegas this month. I get in Christmas eve and fly the red-eye back to NY on Christmas night.]

For the written, just get to the point where you average 90% on the practice tests and you'll be fine. Passing is 70% IIRC. The written is fairly easy.

The oral should be much harder though depending on your FAA examiner. Get an instructor who knows how the local FAA examiner does his oral exams and get a few hours of ground school. Get notes on what areas specifically to study, then do a mock oral exam.

W0X0F, you probably don't fly to Russian destinations other than Moscow, but I'm wondering what you would do in this situation.

I know a First Officer for Lufthansa who flies Airbus 320s to several Russian destinations, and he says that NDB is what they've got in Russia for approaches. Half of the Lufthansa Airbus 320s still have no GPS, so they actually have to use NDB approaches in Russia.

(For non-pilots, I'll explain that NDB is an old radio navigation method, essentially an AM radio transmitter located on the airport. The pilot homes in on the transmitter to find the airport, and nowadays it would be rare to use one in the U.S.)

Here's the situation. One the FO's colleagues was flying to a Russian city, and had to divert because of weather at the destination, where there's only an NDB approach. While my friend tells me that usually Russian ATC is eager to help pilots, in this case ATC told him to divert to an airport that had no Lufthansa service -- if it had passenger facilities at all, they were unfamiliar to the pilot. The German pilot asked for another airport instead, specifying a particular one with Lufthansa service, and he was denied. Now here's the interesting part. Rather than complying, the German pilot then responded "Mayday, Mayday, Lufthansa XXX declares emergency. Diverting to ..." and he named the airport he wanted. Russian ATC replied "Negative emergency" (which I think is really funny) and told him again to go to the airport without services.

Lol ^ that is pretty funny. I am sure others can answer this better, however my understanding of the rules here is that a pilot can deviate from any rules if he declares emergency or even if he just feels an instruction he received is unsafe. IMO, not wanting to land at an airport because it doesn't have Lufthansa service is pushing it, unless the pilot deems it unsafe.

W0XOF, another question for you- have you ever been in a situation where you had to override the decision of the PIC if you were in the right seat or vice versa? Also, have you ever flown with female pilots where you were in the right seat and they were in the left? Do some pilots let their egos get away from them when there is a woman in the left seat?