Thanks for that treatise on winglets and wing design. Good stuff. As with aircraft design in general, a lot of it is about trade-offs. There's no one "best" design, winglets included. Winglets themselves might only be enjoying their current popularity due to increases in fuel costs. There was a day when that was an almost trivial part of the cost of delivering air travel. Not so anymore.

Thanks for taking the time to put together that very thorough post. I enjoyed reading it.

the average domestic r/t ticket is up about 14% over the last 15 years (if you adjust for inflation, it is down over 30%).
Over that same time, gas prices are up well over 200%
Tickets to Walt Disney World well over 100%
Even things like electricity are up well over 14% over that period of time.

The reason for the fees are simple. People go to their favorite travel website, look at the comparison, and pick who is cheapest. If an airline gets rid of fees, they have to increase fares. If they increase fares, they lose lots of business.

Complaining about increases in airfares (with our without fees) is just plane shortsighted. And complaining about these things on a thread whose author has undergone more than his fare share of pay cuts, reworked contracts, pension reductions, mergers, employer bankruptcy filings, furloughs, etc. so you can get these fares is, quite frankly, classless.

If airfare is too high, and you feel raped by the fees, then drive; and enjoy those $3.499/gal fill-ups while you are at it.

Thank you. (p.s. I assume the highlighted words were punnish?)

(and enough about the business aspect...I'd like to return to flying questions )

Seconded here.

I have a question. If you're operating a multi-sector route eg JFK-LHR-DXB (don't know if that's actually a Delta route but it'll serve as an example) would the crew tend to operate both sectors or maybe overnight in London and then operate the following day's sector to DXB or return to the US leaving the LHR-DXB sector to be operated by a crew temporarily based in London?

I have long been told that a Pilot or Captain of a ship should be the last to leave a plane/ship when in an emergency. Sticking to airplanes I have read about such scenarios (such as captain Sully(sp?)) and the pilot and crew who refused to leave their passengers as terrorists in Entebbe who, in my opinion, did the right thing (going on a tangent, what do you think about the pilot + crew being suspended in the case of Entebbe?).

However recently watching air crash investigations I saw that in a few crashes the pilots were the first ones out, some jumping from their cockpit windows...

Is this actually taught anywhere, that you should 'clear' your plane before disembarking yourself (even in normal every day landings) or is it an unwritten rule or simply up to each person?

Personally I would like to think that the people in control feel responsible for their passengers, however another side of me cannot blame a mother or father for thinking of their family first...

<tongue firmly in cheek>You could say that the flightdeck crew is trained to get the passengers back on the ground without killing anybody while the cabin crew is trained to get the passengers off the plane without killing anybody.</tongue firmly in cheek>

Ummm, errr, ummm, err, yes they were done on purpose.

So I do wonder your thoughts on the potty procedure.

An FYI for those who haven't seen this, when a pilot has to use the facilities, the flight attendant will barricade the cabin door with the drink cart. The pilot comes out, goes in the bathroom, finishes, closes the door, and then the flight attendant moves the barricade.

Since you can't comment on specific security measures, I just wonder if this has led you to 'hold it' whenever possible. Do they give you a hard time if they have to wait there for a longer than normal time? I know after some airline food, I'd be worried about opening the door with one of my colleagues standing right there.

There would be a fresh crew for the LHR-DXB leg and the crew which brought the plane from JFK would probably have a day of rest and then do the Dubai leg the next day. A real-world example is a trip we used to fly from JFK to Mumbai by way of Frankfurt.

Is it always the case where the first leg of trip is flown by the Captain and every other leg after that? Can you think of a situation where that doesn't happen? On another topic, I saw a story where an American Eagle flight lost pressurization and had to land. In a 767, one, how fast can you descend, if you are say FL40 and two, if you are over the ocean, besides the obvious, what are the dangers of flying below FL10 over the open ocean? Thx!

It's a kind of unwritten rule that the Captain would be the last off the ship in an emergency, but there are other situations (e.g. a hijacking) where this doesn't necessarily apply. In the case of a hijacking (at least in the old days, pre-911), pilots were encourage to evacuate through the cockpit windows once the airplane got on the ground. The logic was that this prevents the hijackers from refueling and continuing the odyssey.

On a normal flight, the flight crew often leaves before the passengers. I've been the first guy off the plane several times when I'm running for my commute home. The flight attendants, on the other hand, have to remain on board until the passengers are all off the plane. They even do a walk-through and check the lavs to make sure the plane's empty.

Regarding the Entebbe situation, I'm unaware of what the crew did in that case. What were they suspended for?

On the 3-man international flights, it's pretty easy to just coordinate the breaks with the crew swaps. For long 2-man flights (trans-con or a flight to Ireland, for example), we're obviously going to need a break at some point, particularly since we're also trying to stay hydrated on the flight. I try my best to limit myself to one trip per flight, but it doesn't always work out that way and I don't hesitate to call if I need to go. I've been in the situation of flying an approach in bad weather with a full bladder and it's pretty distracting. I've never seen it as a "contributing factor" in an NTSB report, but it wouldn't surprise me.

It's always the Captain's decision, and several of them do take the first leg, but there's all kinds of variations. When flying a day full of "out and back" from a hub, it's not uncommon for each pilot to fly two legs in a row rather than alternate, so that one guy doesn't spend the whole day flying into the hub.

I flew with one Captain years ago who left it all up to a "simple game of chance." He would flip a coin and let me call it. Whoever won could then select any or all of the legs (or none of them) for the day.

I just did that this past weekend in the simulator and I think we were seeing a descent rate of about 6000 fpm, maybe a little more. As for flying below FL10 (10,000') over the ocean, there's no real danger associated with it. There's nothing to hit and very little random traffic out there. The big negative is that the fuel flow increases dramatically and it's very likely we couldn't make it to Europe at that altitude.

Thanks for that. I guess this varies with the airline.
How about if the sectors were of considerably unequal length? Singapore Airlines for instance fly SIN-MUC-MAN, I know you're unable to speak outside your experience but maybe Delta operate services with similarly asymetric sectors? (somewhere-ATL-MSP or somewhere-ATL-JFK?)

At one point, the hijackers separated the Jewish passengers and permitted all non-Jews to exit the aircraft. Captain Michel Bacos refused to leave the plane with the other non-Jews because he said that the passengers were his responsibility and the rest of the crew elected to stay as well. It has been reported in a number of newspapers that Bacos was reprimanded and suspended for jeopardizing the safety of his crew, but several folks on airliners.net have claimed that this was made up by a newspaper and that the captain was suspended due to health concerns and was never reprimanded. I've never before seen any suggestion that the crew were suspended.

I just wanted to be another one to thank you for starting this thread and your dedication in keeping it going. Add me to the list of people that would like to buy you a beer or something if you get their way(DFW).

When the terrorists landed the plane they released all of the non jewish passengers and allowed them to leave. The pilots and crew refused to leave their passengers behind.

Although they were given medals from Israel (they made it out ok), they were all suspended from their job for not leaving when they had the chance.

That's actually a reality for many of us.

I guess I had them confused too. I was somewhat more understanding when I thought their airplanes operated almost entirely within Europe. Why would an airline that flies regular transoceanic flights not be ETOPS capable? That can't be cost effective, can it?

W0X0F,

First off, great thread.

Sorry if these links have been posted in the thread before, but check them out below.

Flight Level 390 is a great blog from an US Airways captain, even though he LOVES flying the Airbus. IMO, Boeing > Airbus.

The second link is a comedy based diary written known as "4-Day Follies" by an anonymous airline pilot calling himself "Pilot X". Using my powers of deduction, he is a FO flying for Airtran out of Atlanta. I find his writing hilarious with lots of pop culture references and metaphors and it looks like he is coming out with a book.

Hopefully, you enjoy both as much as I (someone with lots of interest in "life on the line") did:

Flight Level 390


4 Day Follies

P.S. As I know your family was in military aviation, I am actually aspiring right now to join the Navy as a Pilot or Naval Flight Officer. Unfortunately, with the Federal budget concerns, the door for the near future might be closed as more officers renew contracts and less spots are available.

Thanks again for all the great insight/advice/knowledge in this thread!

This has been the BEST thread I've EVER read on any forum. Period.

I am on page 71, which is approximately 30%, and I am reading this like a book. Honestly, I am skiping many posts and reading just W0X0F's replies, but that itself is already highly entertaining. I've been facinated with flying for as long as I remember myself, but life turned out differently and I didn't go for it. Looking back, if I could start all over again when I was 20, I'd probably do it, and would be flying for food My favorite author is John Nance, and "Crisis in Cockpit" is my re-read list for every year. Reading first 700 posts, I've confirmed what I already knew about flying of an airliner, the only gaps to fill were around company-specific procedures. So for a non-pilot, I think I know a lot, and spending last 15 years on every single version of flight simulation software helped a lot (anyone remembers SubLogic ATP?!)

I just could not wait to ask a question, so I've skiped ahead and hear it goes:

Q: How do you transition from flying to driving? On an aircraft, you steer with pedals and control speed with throttle, and it is totally different in a car.

I've recently taken an introductory flight lesson (Diamond DA20 out of KMMU), and did all sort of student pilot errors with not keeping eyes out of cockpit, grabbing the stick, and not using the pedals (this is where FlightSim screwed me up!)... I had to think again what to do when I got back in the car


Now back to the page 71 Looking forward to catch up with current situation. And W0X0F, if you are still offering flying lessons for poker lessons, let me know, we'll try to work something out!

P.S. I will pay big bucks (will easily part with $1K-2K) for an hour or two in real simulator for a "heavy" ...

And another question...

Back in around 1993, I was on a flight from Nice to JFK, I believe it was L-1011. I was sitting by a window overlooking left wing, and I saw something like a leak of fluid escaping around edges of maybe ~6" round cap/cover, which was on top of the wing just above the engine. The fluid would trail toward rear edge and then off the wing. I was pondering for a while what it could be (didnt want to make fool out of myself), but eventually rang a flight attendant and shown it to her. She thanked me, went to the front, and a few minutes later the leak stopped.

Do you know what it could have been? The thoughts running through my mind that it could be jet fuel, which means we might run out of fuel before reaching JFK, or it might ignite on landing with thrust reversers blowing hot air through the gaps of extended flaps...

We used to fly JFK-SNN-DUB (New York to Shannon, Ireland, then continue to Dublin), so it's been done here. But I don't know of any others like that today.

I find this hard to believe, but I couldn't find a definitive answer anywhere.

Any thoughts on this W0X0F? http://travel.aol.co.uk/2011/03/16/revealed-the-airline-crew-being-sent-to-charm-school/
Do you get to go on the course?