Center maybe? Probably not because that's too obvious...haha.

Have you ever flown into Keflavik? I realize that it's the basic 'emergency' landing point out there in the middle of the atlantic, but it just seems to far out of the way.

If the runway were long enough, couldn't V1>VR? (at least in theory, maybe not on any actual runways)

so in atlanta, how do you know which runway is which? just something you have to know?

I got some better answers for you. I called my friend, the one who flew during WWII and asked him about his experiences. I was right that he flew the PBY Catalina, but that was just his training plane; he never flew it operationally. Instead, he transitioned to the larger PBM Mariner which he flew in the Pacific for almost 3 years.

Landing in calm conditions is about the same as a ground landing; flare before touchdown to get the nose up in a landing attitude and let the airspeed bleed off.

It's when the sea state starts getting bad that it's hairy. They often had no choice in these matters...after an 18 hour mission, flying from the Philippines to mainland China and back (and never above 200' in order to evade Japanese radar), they had to land on what was there when they returned.

It was highly desirable to land into the wind but not always possible due to waves. If there were no waves, only swells, they landed parallel to the swells. You tried to time it to land on the backside of the swell. With waves present the important thing was not to get the nose buried in a wave.

Little of this pertains to light plane float flying. The real important factor for takeoff and landing is to be aligned with the wind. An experienced float plane pilot can tell by the water surface the wind direction.

They have the numbers/letter painted on the runways at each end. They also have signs on the ground for take off.

Depends on the plane, of course. The 767 has two main trucks with 4 tires each. If one blows, it won't be that huge a deal.

The MD-88 had two tires per side. Bigger deal, but probably still only a minor problem with directional control on the rollout.

The RJ has one tire on each. Blowout = huge problem.

Never seen that. If there's interaction (vs. each doing his own thing) it's usually just BS'ing on some topic. The NW merger provided plenty of subject material and sometimes it's just hangar flying (telling old flying stories...often very entertaining).

Sometimes it can be torture if you get stuck with a pilot who talks incessantly about something you have no interest in. I had this not long ago. The topic was personal finances, a subject that bores me no end. It probably shouldn't, but it does.

This guy went on and on and on. There is no place to go at Flight Level 350. Then, while telling a story with excruciatingly irrelevant detail, he was going down some tangent and said something like "Oh, that's another story. I'll get to that one in a minute." I'm thinking "Oh God, now he's queuing the damn things up!" The crash axe started to call to me.

Once established in the climb, the 767 will do 3000' per minute or more down low and we'll often still be doing 2500-3000' per minute through 20,000' with a speed of ~320 kts. These are ballpark figures; it'll vary with aircraft weight and the temperature conditions. As I mentioned in a previous post, the plane likes cold air (more lifties).

On descent, we will sometimes descend in excess of 4000' per minute if we're hustling down to make a crossing restriction. But a cruise descent is usually in the 2500+/-500 foot per minute range. Once established on final approach and fully configured for landing, we're looking at a descent rate of around 700-800 ft/minute.

In the early days of aviation, the side slip was a common technique used to increase descent rate while keeping the airspeed low for landing. This was before the innovation of flaps (in WWI airplanes didn't have flaps). The pilot would kick out of the side slip just before landing. It's a technique that I show students when I train them...could come in handy if the flaps fail.

I've been in there as a passenger only. It looks crazy in that video because that guy was really low. We're supposed to cross over the runway threshold at 50' and touchdown approximately 1000' down the runway. No way this guy did that.

All of the performance data for the plane is predicated on the landing profile I mentioned, so if you land on the first few feet of the runway, you've screwed up.

Still...cool video. Next time I go to St. Maarten on vacation, I'll make sure to ride up in the cockpit so I can watch the landing.

Thank you (and to all of you for the nice response). I certainly didn't expect so many questions, and such good ones. Judging by what I'm used to seeing on NVG and BBV, I expected it would just be a lot of demands for flight attendant stories (of which I have precious few).

OOT is a couple notches up on the decorum meter from NVG and BBV. It can still be juvenile depending on the subject, but it's not the poo-flinging monkey house those places are. At any rate, keep up the good work! Did you ever post your near-accident story?

Wow, thanks.

I wanted to add something regarding what you said in the paragraph above. I am very happy to say that the vast majority of pilots I fly with are very professional about the job. When the door closes and it's time to go fly, it's all business to get it done right and safely. We are all mission oriented, but safety is definitely first.

Every once in a great while you'll come across a guy who still has too much of the cowboy attitude, doing things in a not-quite-standard way. The pilot group is a pretty good self-policing group and won't put up with someone who's unsafe. We all depend on each other because we realize that an airline accident can have far reaching effects on the company and all of our careers.

If we encounter someone of this type, the conventional steps to take are (1) talk to the guy and see if you can get him to straighten up or (2) report it to the Professional Standards committee within our pilot union. They will then counsel this guy and, if they get repeated reports, the union will come down on him.

Like I said, it's a rarity.

The hub and spoke system has been around for a lot of years now and provides a lot of operational advantages to the company, but has the flaw of crippling the system when something goes wrong at the hub. We've all seen what happens when Chicago is snowed in, a Nor'easter hits New York, or Atlanta is having summer thunderstorms.

The close-to-home airport thing has the flaw of no one wants airports near their homes.

I don't know, I guess we'll always have some mix of this. The free market tends to find the equilibrium. I'm not sure about the concept of larger and larger aircraft. The Airbus 380 is having some growing pains and heaven help them the first time they have a real emergency evacuation from that thing. It's limited in which airports can even handle it. I think it may be only 12 airports worldwide (someone can probably correct me on this).

haha!!

W0x0f, have you ever done any writing or thought about writing professionally? You obviously have a great talent for it. Judging by all the material in this thread, and all the interest it's generated, I really think you could write a book or a personal essay about your flying experiences. And given how much public attention there is on the airline industry right now, I bet it'd be successful.

Just throwing it out there. I work in journalism and you clearly have a gift for writing with clarity, with wit, and with humor.

Does the earths rotaion have any affect on travel time? Also, have you ever flown over the north or south poles?

What a great name for a dog!

Absolutely not (to the question in bold). When I finally decided to go fly full time (just couldn't stand the thought of always wondering about it), I went from being a senior systems engineer making about $90k to a first officer on a J32 making about $20. That was a healthy pay cut and I only survived because I continued to do some consulting to various software companies on the side.

There's even one outfit I know of in Florida where the FOs pay for the privilege of sitting in the right seat to build their multi-engine time (which is one of the hardest hurdles for a new pilot trying to build his time). Can you believe that?

I've got over 3000 hours in that plane and was a flight instructor in it also. The landing speed seems high because of its size. IIRC, the approach speed in the J32 was about 130 kts and we touched down around 125. The J32 was my first airline plane and I still remember a lot of the stats: max takeoff weight 16,204 lbs; max landing weight 15,609 lbs.; max altitude 24,000'.

It was a great airplane to fly...very stable. But I was surprised that it had no autopilot. I couldn't believe it but we hand flew that thing for every minute and often flew 6-8 flights a day in the weather in the northeast corridor of the U.S. (a high traffic area). It was not so great for the passengers (no lav, no flight attendant and very noisy).

Good for them on the PR. No pilot I've heard has ever complained about the things you mentioned. Used to be a controller didn't even need a college degree...don't know if this is still true. Pretty good money for a high school grad. But again, no complaints. A good controller is highly appreciated by pilots. You fly in to ORD, JFK, ATL and you appreciate the guys there who can really keep things moving.

And BTW, I was almost a controller. I took the exam and got 100% on it then got called in to Dulles for an interview and psych eval and everthing went great. I was told to expect to hear something within the next 2-6 months. During that time period, PATCO went on strike and Reagan fired all controllers. I was later told that I'd need to reapply...I lost interest.

I never have, though they still tell us that we're supposed to use that phrase if, for example, we have to depart one of the oceanic tracks (they tell us to use this on the air-to-air freq to alert other crews).

Keep 'em coming!

I've always said the same thing. I think it comes down to this: if you do it beforehand, you could delay the flight (and the company hates this); if you do it afterwards you only inconvenience the pilot.

Oh, and for the drug test, you don't get immediate results. It goes to a lab. The breathalyzer is immediate of course, so your point is valid.

(How they think I'm going to fail an alcohol test after an 11 flight from Moscow is beyond me. I'd have to be drinking on the flight. But, as with security, so much of this eyewash and just going through the motions to satisfy some bureaucratic requirement.)

With you until this last statement. You're confusing local supersonic flow with a supersonic airspeed. The local flow would not cause any sonic booms. FAA stays happy.

Awesome thread just finished reading the whole thing

I have a half remembered story about pilots either in training on flight sims or early in their careers who when flying in thick clouds stop trusting the equipment that tells you if you're flying level and adjust and adjust until they come out of the cloud at some crazy angle or upside down. Is this an urban legend?

Hey W0X0F, awesome thread and just wanted to say you're my new fav poster.

I'll think of some questions and ask them later. Thanks for doing this.

You've been pretty critical of all the faux security measures at airports nowadays. Are there security measures we're not taking that you think we SHOULD be taking that would significantly improve security?

It's airspeed that allows a plane to fly. Before I address you question, consider this situation:

I have a small plane that requires an 80 kt airspeed to takeoff. This plane is sitting motionless on the ground and the wind starts blowing and increases to 80 kts right on the nose of the plane. Can it lift off? (assume the airplane is chocked so it doesn't blow backwards)

The answer is yes. The airspeed indicator will register 80 kts (the impact of the wind on the pitot tube) and if the nose is raised the plane will lift off. But what will happen then? With no propulsion the airborne plane will start going backward in the wind, and it will no longer have 80 kts of relative wind on the nose. The airspeed indicator will register a reduction in airspeed as the plane moves with the air mass and the airplane will begin to stall and settle back on the ground.

In the hypothetical situation you describe, the airspeed will never increase to allow takeoff. By matching the airplane's speed with the conveyor built, the relative wind will remain zero. Even at full power, the airplane can't take off.

I can't exactly picture the conveyor belt scenario that Reefypoopoo is describing, but check this out:

http://mythbustersresults.com/episode97

Mythbusters ftw again.

Hmmm...I see what you mean. You're saying the conveyor couldn't do what he said, i.e. make the plane appear motionless to an outside observer. My answer was based on assuming that this effect was achieved -- it would mean zero airspeed.

Oh, considering this too long will make my head hurt. Calling MythBusters!