So last night I experienced my biggest pet peeve when flying - the multiple tiny delays that add up to a really large delay. Overall I was delayed ~3 hours but in 5 minute to one hour increments. My favorite was when they updated our ETA to 5:15 from 5:05 when it was already almost 5:30.

Sometimes they explain that it's a mechanical problem and in that case I understand why we get intermittent updates but in this case the plane just hadn't landed. It feels like they should know that if the plane hasn't taken off from its previous destination we're not going to be leaving for awhile. Am I missing something?

I am right there with you on this one, jj. As you said, I can understand the rolling mechanical delay estimates; it's just hard to know sometimes exactly how long a problem will take to rectify. But it's particularly annoying when it stretches out for an hour or more and then they finally decide the flight is cancelled (or, as sometimes happens, the crew times out on their duty day because of the mechanical delay).

I've experienced the situation you describe where the time actually changed to an earlier time (which had already passed). I remember one time when I was trying to fly home and this was happening. Unlike other passengers, I just happened to have the phone number for JFK operations (for my company) and so I called them to get the ungarbled word on what was going on. Whereas the gate personnel could only tell me that the plane was delayed getting in from Columbus (they had no real idea of the ETA), the ops people were able to tell me that the plane was on a five mile final as we were speaking. This gave me a pretty good idea that things would be moving soon and I shared this knowledge with my fellow passengers.

I wish I could tell you why airlines are so bad at getting reliable information to the passengers. The weak link in the process seems to be getting the info to the gate personnel. They just parrot the time delay that is posted.

Pretty nice photo of a Lufthansa plane with an engine fire taken by a nature photographer.

http://www.mtv3.fi/uutiset/kotimaa.s...inki-vantaalle

The news article is in Finnish but there isn't much to read. The only description of the event is by a passenger who said they heard "three series of bangs" after the take-off after which the plane turned back to the airport and landed safely.

The article itself is dated 4th of May, but it doesn't say when this happened.

As said, no info from any officials or the airline yet.

I work very close to MIA and when planes are coming in from the east, they will fly directly over the lot where I park. This is about 2 miles from the runway, so the planes typically come in low and slow over my head. I've noticed that on a quiet day (no wind, not much city noise) I will hear a "whooshing" noise about 30 seconds after the plane has passed by and after I can no longer hear the engines.

This noise lasts about 5 seconds and isn't terribly loud but is very distinct. Can you give some insight to what I'm hearing?

This has to be the plane's wake that you're hearing. The wing creates a disturbance in the air that descends at about 500'/minute, so half a minute is about right for that wake to reach the ground if you're within a mile of the runway (the glide slope puts us about 300' agl for every mile from the runway).

According to the FAA's information on this topic, the wake spreads out laterally when it contacts the ground. The 500'/minute figure is a number I recall from my early training, but I didn't find a source for that.

Just wanted to thank you W0X0F for this awesome thread. I made a forum account here to for that (I can't play poker for ). Also follow your thread on Flyertalk (how I got referred to this). I was Platinum Elite on NWA for years before the merger, but have fallen to a lowly Silver Medallion.

Anyway, I had a cool experience in Atlanta a few months ago. We were to fly a Diesel-9 up to DTW (my home airport) and the incoming plane was delayed due to MX, and ultimately had another mechanical in-flight and so the delay was to be substantial.

The cool part was, the Captain came over the PA in the gatehouse and kept us informed on what was going on, much more so than the gate agents. We ultimately had a plane/gate swap, and he announced this and helped an elderly couple with their stuff over to the new gate.

#1 class act guy, and I wrote in to Delta to say that. It's the little things like that which help defuse a worsening situation, and I applaud you and the other customer-oriented pilots out there.

I think he might be talking about the reverse thrust after the plane has landed

You may be right. I was kind of influenced by his description of a "whooshing" sound which made me think of the wake passing him.

In one of my weirdest information foul-ups while flying...I was at LAX late last year and the departure we were all waiting for was 20 minutes past the on-time departure still listed at the gate and on the monitors, and then there was a PA saying they would start the boarding process pretty soon. I look out the window and around the corner where the plane should be (at this gate the plane is not easy to view), but no plane is there so I obviously question the 'process' is starting anytime soon. So, I think, probably on final. As time passes and no plane is showing up, I decide to dig out my laptop, fire it up and see just where this plane is.

When I found it was still sitting on the ground at SFO I was seething. Of course, right before I told all the passengers standing around, I booked on another fight leaving pretty shortly that only had a seat or two left. While this is an extreme example, it seems to me the airlines do not give out the proper information so you will not be so quick to fly another airline the day they are delayed

I have a friend that has a similar story flying from Australia to Canada. He checked his flight 4-5 hours before it was scheduled to leave and it said on time. He gets to the airport and finds out that the flight was cancelled because the plane wasn't able to leave Canada because of a snow storm. Given the flight time between Canada and Australia is something like 15 hours they probably knew the flight wasn't happening long before they got around to announcing it was cancelled.

I recently saw a YouTube video of a cockpit landing of a B767. They showed the captain landing. I could be wrong, but it seemed he was only using one-hand on the yolk. Is this normal? I would think you would always use two hands when landing, but then I thought most people just use one hand when driving, so maybe it was a smooth landing?

Yes, that's typical. One hand on the yoke (not yolk, btw...that would get messy ) and one hand on the throttles (or thrust levers, as they prefer us to call them now). In rare circumstances with very gusty winds, I'll use both hands on the yoke after bringing the throttles to idle (at 10-30 feet agl).

I assume pilot-made cockpit videos in US commercial airliners violates some sort of company/FAA policy? I know I'd be interested in seeing and hearing what the folks with the good view are up to.

any advice on which airline to fly with that has decent seating/comfort....i flew for my 1st time a couple months ago and i went with the cheapest flight that ended up being "spirit" and the seating comfortabilitly wise was terrible...i dont need business type class or anything like that but i will never fly spirit again. any suggestion on which airline to try out this time?

I'm not trying to dodge your question, but I really don't know. I haven't sampled cabin seating on all that many airlines. You can probably find discussions and suggestions on this topic on FlyerTalk.com.

http://www.seatguru.com/traveltips/c...php?category=S

maybe you can find some info on that website. i've checked some seat pitches there before

i figured you might not know alot about sitting in the back so to speak, but i wasnt sure where else to ask this question around these forums. thanks for sending me in the right direction guys very much appreciated

Listening to ATC when T-Storms move through is always interesting to say the least. Last night, I was listening and several pilots mentioned 30 knot gains on final and some mentioned 30 knot losses. Which is worst, a sudden loss or gain? ATC halted all incoming arrivals, but departures were still being allowed. What seemed strange, to me at least, was ATC was polling who wanted to go. They called out several flights, some accepted, some declined. Is it just a comfort level for the pilot? For example, a 777 departed and reported little turbulence, but several RJ's and other MD-80's declined. Just curious how that process works?

A 30 knot gain or loss is huge. We will go around if we see a 15 knot fluctuation and I wouldn't even attempt the approach if the preceding traffic reported +/- 30 knots. A loss of airspeed is worse than a gain because it's an instantaneous loss of lift and and can result in a significant altitude loss or possibly even a stall. A sudden gain of airspeed can cause a flap overspeed and/or an increase in lift which will take the plane above the glideslope. If the deviation is great enough, a go around should be initiated.

Halting arrivals sounds like a good idea. 30 knots is just too much. Continuing with departures may be because the departure traffic wasn't experiencing the same kind of windshear. Conditions can vary significantly over a fairly short distance and opposite ends of the same runway can easily have different conditions.

If departing traffic is reporting windshear like the arrival traffic had (30 knots), I would decline to depart. Otherwise it might very well be okay to depart, using full takeoff power (i.e. we don't use reduced thrust if there's a possibility of windshear). This will get us up, up and away from the ground quickly. Altitude is always our friend.

There are no regulations governing the go/no-go decision. This will be company dependent and the final decision always, of course, rests with the Captain. Most guys tend to err on the side of safety, being very conservative about operating in these conditions. Windshear conditions will usually change in just a little while, so waiting is often the best choice. Nobody is going to give us an "atta boy" for forging ahead when things are dicey but there's a bunch of people ready to play Monday morning quarterback if something goes wrong.

When passing through turbulence, is it easy to tell what is "unstable" air vs. wake from another plane? I picture crossing wake from another plane like crossing waves from a passing boat on a lake. Crossing wake would seem much more "rigid". With the belly landing of the US Airways flight in EWR the other day, I was wondering if you had a gear malfunction on a B767, is there access to go down and physically look at the gear if you had a problem? I recall seeing this in a movie, but wasn't sure if that was just "Hollywood"? What are your thoughts on the B787 battery problems? I assume you wouldn't have a problem flying it if the FAA cleared it?

Yes, if you happen to encounter wake from a plane that crossed your path several minutes earlier (and at a higher altitude, since the wake actually descends through the air mass), it's kind of like hitting a pothole. If you're a frequent flyer, you've experienced this. Everything is smooth and then...BUMP...and everything is smooth again.

A more rare situation is to be following another airplane on the same route at the perfect altitude and distance in trail to experience continuous wake turbulence. I can only think of a handful of times I've ever suspected this is the cause of our bumps and it's easily rectified by a slight sidestep from the route of flight. We simply ask ATC if we can fly an offset, e.g. "one mile right of course." With today's flight management systems, it's simply a matter of typing in "R 1" for a course offset one mile to the right of the programmed route of flight. In the old days of VOR navigation, there was really no way to offset your course with any precision.

If there's a way to do this, I've never heard it mentioned in any of my training. I could see where it might be possible to check the nose gear, since it is possible to go down into the E&E compartment during flight (I think E&E stands for Electronics and Equipment).

The MD-88, on the other hand, has visual inspection ports for the main gear. There are orange stripes painted on the landing gear which will only align when the gear is down and locked. These can be viewed through inspection ports located beneath the floor in the main cabin.

If you find yourself flying an MD-88 (probably true for any DC-9 variant), you can find the access panels on the floor located between the 3rd and 4th windows aft of the emergency exit. If you open the panel, you'll see a small periscope and a light switch (for illuminating the gear for your inspection).

[Warning: Don't actually do this. It will probably get you arrested.]

In actual practice, this would be very awkward and I don't know any pilot who has done it. You'd have to go back in the cabin, ask the passengers over the port to move, then get down flat on the floor and look through a lens, which has probably never been cleaned, at landing gear which is probably not pristine in appearance. To address this last issue, we were supposed to check the orange stripes during our preflight walkaround to make sure that they were adequately visible (i.e. not covered by grime). We also checked the inspection light during the walk around (there's a light switch in the gear bay).

I expected this problem to be rectified in short order. I just thought they would be able to switch out this new lithium ion battery for some old proven battery technology. Apparently not that simple. It's now been about four months that the 787 has been out of service and I can't even imagine the cost of this to Boeing.

I just Googled "787 latest news" and saw this, posted one hour ago:

With the scrutiny that this particular problem has gotten and all the testing that has been done, I'm sure the 787 is very safe. But I'd probably feel better about getting on one after the fleet has several months of incident-free flying.

The movie I think you recall is "The Ghost of Flight 401"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJt0oSpYJM8 (full movie)

"An aircraft crashes in the Florida Everglades, killing 101 passengers. After the wreckage is removed, salvageable parts from the plane are used to repair other aircrafts. Soon passengers and crew on those aircrafts report seeing what they believe to be the ghost of the wrecked airplane's flight engineer."

The scene dealing with the landing gear is at the 18m40s mark.

The movie is based in part on the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern...nes_Flight_401

That accident led to a modification of autopilot systems and an emphasis on division of duties among crew members during abnormal or emergency situations. In this case, one of the landing gear lights was out...a tiny bulb that simply needed to be replaced. On the L-1011 it is possible to actually go below the flight deck to confirm gear position. Another easy action they could have taken was to switch bulbs, using one that worked.

But all the pilots got focused on the gear problem and no one was monitoring the flight instruments. Training today emphasizes that one pilot is always actively flying the airplane. Even if the autopilot is being used, that pilot monitors the instruments.

I'm not sure the Wiki article states it, but from what I heard about this accident, one of the pilots nudged the steering column enough to disengage the autopilot, but no one noticed. This led to a change in that system and now every autopilot sounds an aural alarm when it is disengaged, even if it's done intentionally. There's a button on the yoke to silence the alarm and most pilots will press this button almost simultaneously with disengaging the autopilot.

I was scheduled on an MD-80 this morning and the captain came on to say the plane was being taken out of service because a communication panel was inoperative (trying to recall from memory the exact verbiage). He went on to explain that the panel was used for communication between the cockpit and the flight attendants and the ground crew. However, he was explaining this all over the PA. To the layman, this doesn’t seem to be a critical flight component, but I assume it's against FAA regulations to fly with that component operational?

THink this should be between page 30 and 40 somewhere