Perfect illustration of what I was trying to tell my seatmates during the rejected landing I had on Monday - pilots elect them to stay away from danger.

Something tells me OP has managed to stay on the pavement during his career as a commercial pilot.

Don't remember if it was OP on here but someone once said every landing is an aborted go around.

idiot said nice landing on the video. any landing you can walk away from is a good landing

Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) are published as needed by the FAA and are available on the internet to pilots. When I fly GA planes out of Leesburg or Manassas (Virginia), I always check for current TFRs, which are common in the D.C. area. For pilots on an instrument flight plan (which includes all airline flying), TFRs are not really a consideration and we don't check for them. Our instrument clearance will automatically take any restrictions into account.

I have had it happen where some VIP movement (e.g. Air Force One or Two) causes a temporary hold on all traffic going in or out of a particular airport. This can pop up unexpectedly after we're already airborne and can be a real nuisance, resulting in prolonged holding en route. It's not unusual in such a case to hear several aircraft divert due to fuel considerations.

I've only had this happen a handful of times in all my flying, but it's still annoying and makes me shake my head at the regal handling we afford to our political leaders. I really don't think security is enhanced by stopping all traffic and the cost to airlines and passengers (in missed connections) is enormous.

Some GA pilots might not see a simulator in their entire life. It's not really part of the training for a Private Pilot License. For the instrument rating, use of a simulator, even a simple desktop model with no motion (not much different from some PC programs), is pretty common just for practicing procedures but, again, it's not required and certainly not universal.

Airline pilots do all of their initial training for a new type aircraft in a full-motion Class D simulator. The curriculum will vary from company to company and also for aircraft type, but will probably include anywhere from 8 to 12 simulator sessions of four hours each. Normally, two pilots are trained together as a crew with each taking a turn as the flying pilot (i.e. half the session has one guy flying, then a short break, and the last half with the other guy flying).

The simulator training culminates in a check ride and new type certificate issued to the pilot without ever having set foot in the actual airplane. The first time in the plane is with paying passengers and a check airman to fly along for about 20 hours of IOE (Initial Operating Experience).

Once checked out in a particular airplane type, the pilot will then have regular recurrent training in the sim. This will be according to a schedule that has been blessed by the FAA. I've seen recurrent training on a 12 month cycle, a 6 month cylce, and a 9 month cycle. It can be one or two sessions, again depending on what the FAA has signed off on.

As for stall training, most of that comes in initial training (i.e. before getting that airline job). An airline pilot is presumed to know what a stall is, how to recognize it, and how to recover from it. During recurrent, we do a little training in recognizing, and recovering from, an incipient stall. We don't really ever let it get to a full stall situation. Since the Air France crash, there's been some additional emphasis on this but it's not a big part of the syllabus.

wox youve probably covered this but do they throw all sorts of emergency crap at you in the sim?

have you ever had a captain kirk moment where you beat the unwinnable situation in the sim?

Yes they do, but they rarely combine emergencies. They're not looking to overload us with impossible situations. The goal is to handle situations calmly and in accordance with established procedures and emergency checklists (including memory items when appropriate). They're looking for good CRM and, of course, safe aircraft control without exceeding any limitations.

The Corbomite Maneuver? Nah, never tried it.

Hard to tell for sure what went wrong here. It looks like they landed long, probably due to carrying too much airspeed. I'm happy to say this has never happened to me as an airline pilot. But I did once depart the runway in my Cherokee 180 when I landed with a strong tailwind at Leesburg airport.

It was night and I was unaware that the wind had shifted due to a frontal passage. My ground speed was extremely high after touching down and the end of the runway was coming up so I purposely exited off the side of the runway with less than 200' remaining. I was very lucky to miss all obstructions and safely taxied through the grass back onto the runway and then to my parking spot. I learned a lasting lesson about checking the wind direction for landing. I never made that mistake again.

Yep. That's true.

Just a bit of whimsy here, yet curious. Just saw a program on the History Channel on Air Force One (and there was a similar one on NatGeo.) Col Tillman was the commander for these and, I think for all of the one's in W's administration.

What if Col Tillman (or any other AF 1 commander) retired and looked for a job with the airlines? What would the reaction be from, say, the Airline, the Chief Pilot, fellow pilots? Would he start out as the right seat guy doomed to do the walk around pre flights in the rain? I even wonder what his hours might be compared to you folks on the line.

I mention Col Tillman as an example, only because he has been on both of these specials and was certainly in the pressure cooker the whole time. But then, anyone sitting in the front row of a potential accident scene is in the pressure cooker too.

Thanks for this thread. Steve

PS: I'm not trying to compare Col Tillman's duties with the Line for many reasons, not the least of which he was on duty 24/7 as the Wing Commander responsible for everything his folks did or failed to do, even like a speeding ticket on Andrews.

Yes, he would be placed right at the bottom of the seniority, with all the honors and privileges that go along with that lofty position. Something like this has actually happened. Southwest Airlines hired Robert "Hoot" Gibson in 1996. He was an astronaut with five shuttle missions on his résumé and was Chief of the Astronaut office from 1992-1994.

He still started at the bottom but probably didn't have to do any walkarounds, because at Southwest the mechanics take care of this chore (that's so the pilots can stay in the cockpit to expedite the quick turns that keep Southwest planes in the air where they make money).

Gibson turned 60 in 2006 and had to retire. He lobbied hard to get the mandatory retirement age increased to 65 and it has since happened, but not in time for him.

In response to your question about how many hours Col. Tillman might have, I couldn't venture a guess. But it may not be as high as you think and probably wouldn't be any higher than an airline pilot who has been on the job a comparable amount of time. I'm not sure how many hours per month AF1 averages, but the Air Force does have flight time and duty limits too, though I would guess that they can waive these rules for operational necessity.

Holy crap! This is the best thread ever. I got started reading this when I don't have too much work to do at the office. I'm currently on page 28 and I'm glad to see that the post is still going. Keep up the good work!

http://flightaware.com/squawks/link/...TSA_is_useless

I know you can't comment on security, but no surprise here.

Why do you think the freight carriers still fly planes that are no longer used by commercial airlines, i.e. the MD-11, 727, DC-8, etc...

Today I saw an orange box on a luggage conveyer that had FOD in white letters. Any idea what that might have been? It looked like it was mounted to the portable luggage conveyer.

With all the questions about if a passenger could land a plane or another pilot dead-heading, etc...What are the rules if a flight attendant(s) becomes incapacitated? Can you continue to your normal airport or do you have to land immediately if a certain number of flight attendants are unavailable due to injury, sickness, etc...?

I guess there's a minimum FA/passenger ratio but I've certainly been on a flight where an FA fell ill at pushback and she was disembarked and not replaced. That was on a 2/3rds full 747-400 though so I guess the FA/passenger ratio would still have been fine.

It's true that I can' t really comment on any aspect of aviation security, but I don't think I'm breaking any rules by saying that I completely agree with the sentiment of this video. Many of the common practices of the TSA would fail any rational person's litmus test for what is logical. The word "eyewash" is what always comes to my mind when I witness this goat rope.

Can I bring crutches onto an international flight? Where do they put it? ty ^_^

The answer must be that it's cost effective. Boxes don't care about average fleet age or whether they fly on the most cutting edge airframes.

Usually a container with "FOD" on it will contain loose debris found on the flight line. This is debris that can cause damage to the engines (aka "Foreign Object Damage"). When referring to the items themselves, FOD is often translated as "Foreign Object Debris" (which always seemed a little forced to me).

Not sure what it would be doing on the luggage conveyer belt.

The regulation states that there must be at least one flight attendant for every 50 seats on the plane. On our 767-ER, we have seats for about 215 passengers which requires a minimum of five flight attendants, but we usually have eight on board for international flights. Our domestic 757s usually have just the right FA complement (four FAs for about 185-ish seats).

Your question is a good one and, though I don't know for sure, my guess is that if we fall below the minimum required we'd only divert if necessary for the health and welfare of the incapacitated FA. In other words, I think it's probably a case of "good to start, good to finish." The exception might be if we fell below the minimum before coasting out on a trans-Atlantic flight. In that case, Flight Control might direct us to divert.

Again, I'm not sure about this and if it happened, we'd probably contact our dispatcher for direction.

Of course you can. There are places to store large items (usually a coat closet).

Do airlines really have a 10million miles club? I was recently watching the movie Up In The Air with the GF and went straight to this thread after the movie.

Not sure if this is a stupid question but we've discussed ITT how jet engines are more efficient at higher altitudes, if winds at FL20-FL29 were considerably more favourable than those at normal cruising altitude (FL30+), would you consider asking for a lower cruising altitude?
How frequently might such conditions exist, such that more favourable winds more than compensate for the increased fuel usage at lower altitudes?

Was the first time you landed a plane scary? (sorry if already asked, long thread).

W0X0F,

Just wanted to let you know I read this entire thread a bit over a year ago and it actually got me to do my first flying lesson and it was AMAZING!

So just wanted to say thank you, plus it gives me a whole new level of knowledge and respect while I'm flying.

I'm not aware of a 10 million mile club, but it might well be one of the thresholds for the various frequent flyer programs. I recently had a frequent flyer (from FlyerTalk.com) give me a tag for my bag that says I'm a Kryptonium Medallion traveler. This is a goof on the silver, gold and platinum medallion levels. Where other tags show the mileage level necessary to qualify, my tag says "1M Light Years" (about 6 quintillion — 6,000,000,000,000,000,000 — miles...a bit of an exaggeration). The tag is a high quality imitation of the real ones and has been noticed by a lot of the flight attendants I fly with.

Definitely. It's not unusual to stay lower to avoid stronger headwinds at higher altitudes. Another reason for a lower altitude can be for a better ride. I just had this situation recently on a trip to Las Vegas. Turbulence associated with mountain waves were reported for 30,000' and above over the rockies, so we descended to FL290 just east of Denver. We carried extra fuel on this flight to allow for the higher fuel burn down low and from reports we heard from other aircraft, it was definitely worth it for the better ride.