It's a story I told much earlier itt. I don't know exactly which post it was, so I'll leave it as an exercise for the student: use the search function and the keyword "Mooney." I'd do it for you, but I think you'll get more satisfaction by doing it yourself.

First of all, who puts "1)" and "1A)"?

When I was "in the moment" of that event, my mind flitted over the very real possibility that these were going to be my last moments on earth. I remember the sensation of being annoyed about that and hating the fact that Monday morning quarterbacks would read about my demise and judge me an idiot who used poor judgment and got in over his head. All of these thoughts and feelings were quickly overtaken by a feeling of guilt for putting my friend and his wife in this predicament. They had trusted me and I didn't want to let them down. So I put on my game face and just mechanically started doing the things I needed to do about getting us on the ground.

Putting together all the criteria (in bold, above), I'd put the probability at less than 1% (much less).

Hey W0X0F! It's been a while since I've visited this page, but I'm still reading! I just thought of a question and wanted to post before I forget! I know you've mentioned in the past that you're allowed to fly for free. Has there ever been a situation where the pilot of the plane you're on needed your assistance? Have there ever been a situation in the history of aviation where a pilot flying as a passenger assisted the pilots flying? Thanks and keep this thread going!

Yes, that happens. I've assisted the flight crew a few times over the years. I can remember being asked to go back and assess a "strange sound" one of the flight attendants reported in flight. I've also done a pre-takeoff inspection of the wings after being de-iced. Another time I helped locate a specific circuit break on the overhead panel for the crew (this is kind of tough to do without getting up and looking at the panel closely so you can read the labels on each breaker).

I once actually assisted a crew with the flying, in a way. I was in the jumpseat and ATC issued a last minute hold for us as we approached Baltimore (I was commuting home to D.C.). The two guys couldn't get their FMS set up for the hold in time and they were working on that as we crossed BWI. I could see that they weren't entering the hold correctly, so I made a suggestion that they begin a turn to the right to the outbound heading. I hesitate to comment on things like this from the jumpseat, but I didn't want to see them get a violation. Afterwards, the Captain thanked me for the assist.

Not that I know of, but I used to have my Walter Mitty dreams about stuff like this back when I was flying GA.

I think there are a couple of Mayday episodes where they talk about a pilot in the back coming up and helping out.

Here's one I think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232

Edit: Also has one of the best exchanges between pilot and ATC ever:

Besides the United Airlines flight mentioned above, there was an SAS flight that departed Stockholm and on takeoff ice breaking off of the wings hit the rear-mounted engines causing one (or both?) of them to fail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandin...nes_Flight_751. A pilot flying as a passenger decided to go to the cockpit to assist the crew. I think in principle this was against the rules, but it is also my understanding that his help was important in a crash landing that, incredibly, everyone survived. There is an episode of Air Crash Investigation (or Mayday) on the incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-9X8IlmEKQ

do you still have to do training? how often are you actually hands on flying?

2 kinda related questions, awesome thread by the way.

What % of pilots would you say are arrogant, or cocky,or a-holes? Because it seems like every one of them I've met have been cool, down to earth, and nice as can be. You'd think the job would attract the most egotistical. I know a lot of military pilots are. but how about commercial?

Do you guys make fun of male stewards? Do you respect them? Are most pilots pretty easygoing and progressive on things like that? How about if you have a really effeminate or gay one? I feel bad for those guys sometimes, I bet a lot of people are jerks to them. Hey, its an honest living.

Ok I lied here's a 3rd question. do female pilots get full respect or is there still a ways to go on that?

How many female pilots do you think there actually is?

Do you think that noise control on take off impact the safety of a flight? I know years ago pilots complained about having to throttle back to reduce noise. Is this a non issue with the new engines in aviation now?

Another safety question. Animals that live on airport property. Do you think that animal control at airports is as effective as it could be or do you think the that PETA and other animal rights groups have compromised public safety.

Maybe 2%?

When I'm the "Pilot Flying," I almost always climb to at least 10,000' before engaging the autopilot and I often hand fly right up to 20,000' or higher. On the descent, I usually disconnect the autopilot when I get below 5000'. In IMC, I leave it on until I see the runway.

I do two days in the simulator (4 hour sessions) every nine months.

It's a very low percentage, maybe 1-2%, and I think I've seen more of that in my General Aviation flying than in the airlines.

I rarely hear any negative comments about male FAs. While the majority of them are gay, there are also a lot of hetero male FAs. I have a lot of respect for all the FAs and the miracles they sometimes achieve. I've had flights where I felt like we didn't have our best day as an airline (delays, mechanical issues, crappy ride due to turbulence) and the passengers are smiling as they deplane. Good FAs can really salvage a bad flight (and, of course, the opposite is true). I know several of the gay male FAs who are among the best I've flown with. Very professional and they bring a great attitude and sense of humor to the job.

Occasionally, I will fly with a homophobic pilot and I'm surprised that kind of Neanderthal attitude still exists. Maybe my attitude is influenced by having a gay nephew I think the world of..I don't know. (he has his own Wikipedia page!)

Yes, I believe they do. Especially at my airline where they did not get nearly the preferential hiring consideration that United was giving to women in the 90s. United was hiring anyone with two X chromosomes back then, regardless of experience.

I Googled "How many female pilots are there?"

I don't think I've ever seen a female pilot on a commercial flight

We don't throttle back to achieve noise abatement. The procedure might stress higher angle of climbs, such as at Orange County airport, but often the most critical part of the procedure is adherence to the lateral flight path (rich people don't like jet noise). OC airport is the only one I've heard mentioned disparagingly by pilots.

This is a new one to me. I was never aware there was a problem.

I fly several time a month and have seen quite a few.

I'm not surprised that sort of attitude still exists but I am surprised that it's still vocalized. Are these guys usually older ex-military?

So this happened to me yesterday and I was uniformly told that this was standard and told by some that I'm a big baby and just need to roll with this stuff.

Like I was offput by the scene in the cockpit as I boarded. Two mechanics doing work in the cockpit while there was like a buzzer sounding in the cockpit. I was the last guy on the flight (I always wait till the line dies down as I hate waiting on a plane at the gate). Is it the captain's call to board the flight while there is a known mechanical issue at the gate? If so how likely does the resolution have to be for you to have the passengers board? I was pissed because it seems like if there's like any chance for an on time departure they'll board. So you're saying there's a chance dot jpg.

I'm not a frequent flyer by any means, probably been on maybe 200-300 flights in my whole life over 35 years. And I doubt I've seen every pilot of every flight I've ever boarded. But I think I would have remembered a female pilot.

But maybe I saw one and assumed she was a stewardess

Not necessarily either of those categories. I've run into young homophobes too. But I'm happy to say it's rare to encounter this attitude.

Everything is ultimately the Captain's call, but he will usually go with the informed opinion of a mechanic regarding the time needed to rectify a problem. And, yes, if there's a chance for an on time departure we will board. The alternative is to hold off on boarding and then find that we could have been on time, but now that we delayed boarding we're going to be 20-30 minutes late. Now throw in a taxi delay and you could have people miss connections that they might have made if we had simply boarded on time as normal.

I fly SWA mostly and I've noticed that the FA's tend to be grouped by demographics. Frequently they are teamed up into groups of all over 40, or all young hotties, all male. Looks like they have a scheduling system that keeps compatible personalities together.

I see female pilots all the time. I think there are probably more of them on regional carriers.

I doubt that the company does that...it just seems to start to border on profiling and/or discrimination (especially the "hotties" category; can you imagine the resentment from someone who was deemed not good enough for that group?). It's more likely that similar groups bid to fly together (assuming your observation is correct).

Do airlines have specific rules regarding the use of autopilot, and what sort of rules might those be, or is that left to the pilots?

Oh and while we are on the topic of departures, what is the standard profile for climb? I remember in my times at the excellent delta virtual airlines their procedure was something along the lines of V2+a bit to 1000ft agl, accelerate to 250kt and hold it up to 10.000ft. Would that be anything close to realistic?