Along with everyone else, I'm amazed at W0X0F's stamina re this thread and extremely appreciative of it. As someone else has said, this thread just keeps on giving. Thanks again W0X0F.

Not sure if this has been touched on before but do you ever feel your situational awareness or even safety is compromised in multi-lingual ATC areas when you don't understand every RT transmission? I know you fly into Russia, France and South America quite a bit, have you ever had any bad RT experiences in those places? We quite often get Russian speaking crews operate into my local airport (on freighters) and while their English is usually pretty good, it always sounds like they have a mouthful of pebbles when they speak (something to do with the mics they use?).

So, regarding your alarm story in your blog, what happens if you oversleep?

It could be better. There's been a move over the last decade in aviation to kind of "dumb it down." I agree with the basic philosophy, which is that we don't need to know how to build the airplane in order to fly it safely and deal with abnormal situations.

There was a day when learning the plane inside and out was a sort of rite of passage. We would learn things like max EGT for engine start or the temperature and pressure maximums for the pneumatic systems. Now we have red lines to indicate max operating limits or, in the case of the pneumatic system, no indication at all other than a pack tripping off-line (at which point we deal with the problem).

When I taught CRJ systems there were probably only a half dozen pilots (out of 1600) who knew that plane's systems as well as I did and I took pride in that. But the reality is that a pilot just needs to know about those things he can directly deal with. For example, the ice detectors on the CRJ work by vibrating at 40,000 Hz. Ice build-up inhibits this vibration and is reported to the pilots as an "ICE DETECT" message on the EICAS. Who really cares about the 40,000 Hz?

When I was in training for the Boeing 727, we started each day of class by drawing a schematic of the entire electrical system from memory. We'd even go far as to use red for the AC side of the system and blue for the DC side.



On the 727, a case could be made for knowing the internals since that plane didn't have all the automatic switching, etc. provided by today's modern jets. The flight engineer had to closely monitor electrical loads, pneumatic pressures, oil temps and pressures, etc. In today's planes, if a generator trips offline for some reason, the load is automatically picked up by the other generator and non-essential electrical loads are shed. A flight engineer is no longer needed to take of these things.

I still like to know more than the minimum system's knowledge. It's good for bar bets if nothing else. But I have to admit I don't know the 767's systems to the depth I knew the turboprops I flew or the CRJ.

It's pretty much first-come/first-served, though in rare cases there might be a consideration like a crew that's getting close to timing out, in which case there might be an effort to get them to the head of the line so the flight doesn't have to be canceled. This is rare and I don't think I've seen it happen more than a handful of times.

Recently I got de-iced at MSP and, due to a mechanical problem at the gate, we pushed off two hours late. This didn't make any difference in our de-ice priority. We taxied to the de-ice ramp and just got sprayed when it was our turn.

There is absolutely nothing for the pilot to gain by lying to you in this case and I've never been with anyone who intentionally misled the passengers on our progress for de-icing. I'm sure that you were actually #2 if that's what he said. There are several de-ice locations at MSP and I was recently at the pad by Runway 12R. This de-ice pad has 6 spots for aircraft to park and so you might have been #6 in line, but #2 for spot 3 on the pad.

The big variable is how long it takes to de-ice an airplane. If there was active precipitation and the aircraft before you was a heavy which arrived at the pad with a covering of snow and ice, it could take the better part of an hour to get it sprayed (first with Type I glycol to clear the airframe of the snow and ice, then with Type IV glycol for the maximum holdover time).

And it sometimes happens that the de-ice truck runs low on glycol and everyone has to wait while the truck heads back for a refill...a process that can take over half an hour itself. When I've experienced this, I always give an update to the passengers and let them know what we're dealing with.

Sitting on the pilot's lap?!? No, that never happens today and I'm surprised it even happened 30+ years ago. Was this a U.S. carrier?

Did the pilot ask you if you liked gladiator movies?

I see that N 82 50 24 got to this one (many thanks to him for doing the research itt).

I remembered that tail strike thing clearly because, when you posted that, I was going to be flying on a 753 from LAS-IAH the following day and I paid extra attention to rotation on takeoff.

I've never felt that my safety is at risk, but it does affects situational awareness a little bit. So far, I haven't had any bad experiences related solely to ATC communications in foreign languages, but I have had some problems in South America due to the poor quality of the comms down there.

While it's not universal, we run into some areas when talking to Amazonica or Brasilia Control where it sounds like the controllers are mumbling into tin cans...sometimes it even has an echo. The phonetic alphabet often comes to the rescue here. Having the controller spell out the name of an intersection usually clears up confusion when we're being given a clearance direct to a fix. Even if they have a thick accent, we can still parse the spelling.

You bust ass to get downstairs when the inevitable call (or knock on the door) comes to tell you the van is waiting. In this particular case (Stockholm), I was already up and was just killing time on the internet. Knowing how that can absorb one's attention, I took the precaution of setting an alarm on my iPhone to give me 8 minutes to wrap up and get downstairs for the ride to the airport. After a while, it seemed to me that the alarm should have gone off and, sure enough, it had failed. I wasn't yet late so no big deal, but I was really perplexed about the iPhone glitch. I was all set to go into the local Apple store for a visit to the Genius Bar (always an intimidating encounter. I always feel so....simple in comparison ), but it was working again on the 3rd. [For anyone unaware of this, apparently Apple had Y2K-like software glitch in their phones.]

But back to being late...it's probably THE cardinal sin in the aviation business. There's not much chance of things running on time if the crew can't be where they're supposed to be.

How much trouble is this pilot in? Just a lecture, since this didn't have anything to do with "flying" the airplane?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110105/...plane_diverted

First, I want to echo what many have said before me. This thread has been outstanding. W0X0F, you should get some sort of award for this. My sincere thanks for providing such high-quality information.

Story about repainting numbers/renaming runways due to the shifting magnetic poles:

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/jan...a-/news-money/

I've got no question, I just thought this might be interesting to those who are following this thread.

I have a question. Why aren't runway designations relative to true north?

First, I did some more reading on this topic, and that while it's certain that the airport in question is changing its runway designations due to change in true magnetic north, it now appears to me that this is much more common than I would have gathered from the article in question. It's certainly the case that true magnetic north is moving unusually quickly at the present time, but it's not clear that this is the direct cause of this particular redesignation. I still find it interesting.

I'm no pilot, but I presume it's because not every aircraft has a GPS system, and even if they did, one could make a case for making landings as easy as possible for airplanes in which the electrical system has failed.

I doubt anything significant will be done to this pilot. He won't lose his job and he won't be docked any pay or given any "time off." A similar thing happened to the first Airbus we got at Independence Air. I don't think the plane had even lost that "new airplane" smell yet, when a First Officer dropped a cup of coffee being handed to him by a flight attendant. The coffee went all over the center console, which was loaded with electronics. I think that spilled drink ended up costing about $30,000 to repair, not to mention the plane's down time.

The net effect of this incident is that a new rule was put into effect: when handing drinks to pilots, the FAs were told to hand them to the pilots over their outboard shoulder. I'm sure this rule was always followed to the letter.

Thanks (to you and everyone else who has said this; I feel funny acknowledging all of these compliments). I enjoy this thread and I'm as surprised as anyone that it's lasted this long. It's been over a year now and I still get good questions.

We use magnetic north rather than true north because we have magnetic compasses in the plane. It's always a good final check, before starting a takeoff roll, to check the mag compass against the big runway number painted on the pavement in front of you. It should always be within 5°.

Some runways are right on the cusp between one number and the next, so it's not terribly unusual to have runway numbers changed. The main runway at National Airport (DCA) was 18/36 when I started flying; it changed to 01/19 many years ago.

I had to take the fighter pilot thread down for a variety of reasons, mu choice. Which sucks, because I had a bunch of stuff written up re: m career path, that people still had a lot of interest in. What really sucks is that I wok freaking 12 hour days, and I'd come home and try bang out replies and have to sort through a ton of "you're not replying fast enough, Douche" stuff lol. If there are any pressing questions, PM me and I'll get ya.

W0X0F,


I have been subscribed to this thread since day one and am constantly surprised by the new questions being generated; but never surprised regarding OP's efforts to answer them.

What is your Stars' screenname? In appreciation of this thread I intend to give you a sweating interest in my next online session. I did this for Eponymous for his "Godfather" thread. You have put a yeoman's effort into making this thread superb.

Brag: I'm putting OP on a freeroll
Beat: I'm playing micro PLO and 8-game mix

Thanks for the kudos and the freeroll. I haven't played on Stars in quite a while, but my name there is StickShaker. PM me in advance when you're planning a session and I'll watch. Is nolimitfiend your Stars SN?

Thanks again for the amazing replies.


If you won the lottery tomorrow, would you still work as an airline pilot? Or would you buy your own plane and enjoy flying privately? Is being an airline pilot enjoyable/fun for you even after a tired/stressful day?

Are you respected simply because you're a pilot? As most jobs that carry immense responsibility are immediately respected by the average joe, have you found this with your profession?

If you had to teach an intelligent person who has never flown before to get in to a plane, take off, do a circuit and land on their own in an airline jet. Providing that it is guaranteed nothing out of the ordinary will happen and the situation would always be the same. I.e all they had to do was memorize a set amount of actions. How many hours/days do you think this would take?

EDIT: I forgot to mention, after reading the entire thread I found the nearest flight school and bought my older brother a 1 hour lesson. He's now almost finished his PPL and has fallen in love with flying. THANKS!

I just saw an episode of How Do They Do It? where they did a segment on a Dunlop aircraft tire factory. That made me wonder- what is the typical lifetime of an aircraft tire?

I was making a delivery to a small business called "Chance aviation" here in Indianapolis. Last time I was in there, they had a huge tire from the last space craft to land. Was pretty cool to see it and touch it knowing it had been in outter space.

I would probably do both. I've owned whole or partial interest in three different GA planes and I enjoyed having them, but it's an expensive hobby. If I won a mega-millions lottery, I'd probably buy a piece of property with a grass landing strip on it and get a simple little plane just for boring holes in the sky. Something like a J-3 Cub or a Maule.

I do enjoy the job and I think I'd stay on it, but I'd probably fly a lot less...maybe only one or two trips a month, depending on how I feel that month. The money obviously wouldn't be a motivator (as it is now). We have some pilots (and flight attendants) who don't rely on the job as their sole source of income (usually, they have a spouse who makes more) and they can drop most of their trips or put them up on the swap board for other crew members to pick up. The company really doesn't care.

Probably to some extent this is true. But there's also a segment of the population that looks at airline pilots as "glorified bus drivers." The most common reaction I get when someone finds out I'm a pilot (and this is mostly from men) is that they say something like "I always kind of wanted to do that."

We do this in prop planes in about 10 hours for most people. I was looking through my old logbook a few weeks ago and noted that my solo was at just over 7 hours. A jet just has a different kind of propulsion, so the basics of learning what it takes to get around the pattern shouldn't require any more time than this.

Bought it for your brother? Why not yourself? Congratulations to him.

First Happy New Year!

Old man winter is obviously not being kind this week, and your company is especially affected. I don't recall you mentioning your schedule for the month, but how much does what you bid on still matter when Wx issues become wide-spread? Is there still some semblance of fidelity to the schedule, does seniority play a roll in reschedules, or does it digress into a situation where whoever is in the crew lounge is who gets a trip?

Also, given that you commute, are you required to leave early in advance of weather, or do you just plan on your normal commute and then adjust to issues?

Given what JFK might look at in a few days, good luck in advance!
Oh and the Starbucks Giftcards were well received. I did have one leftover which I offered to the flight crew. I had to ask who greased the landing; you will be happy to know it was the FO!

I have long wondered if flying from your stationed airport is as routine as when we drive to work? For example, we know every back road and could probably drive the route in our sleep. Is that the same for a pilot that flies out of JFK every time the fly? On the same note, if you are flying to an airport you have never flown out of, is it like when we drive somewhere we have never been or is it the same procedures for every airport and you have no different feelings? I have always had a sense of when a crew is based at the airport I'm flying to I'm like "oh they know all the nuances of this airport, so anything that seems out of the ordinary for us, is routine for them because they see it all the time.” Thx.

Because he had lost his feet on choosing a career path and I thought he'd enjoy it after reading your thread and it works out I was right!

One of my goals is to get a PPL but I need to find some time and get over my fear of flying first