I just love the airlines like jet blue who offer a few seats upfront with more room for a marginal price of between $30-$50 a flight. I am happy to pay that but don't need nor can I afford first class. I even wish the other majors who don't have "Premium Economy" at least gave me the option to pay up for exit row. It angers me to no end that I can never get exit rows as the frequent flyers get preferred access even though I would happily pay $50 a flight for exit row.

How realistic was Die Hard 2 as far as planes being told to fly the outer marker and the bad guy being able to change the computers so that the pilot thought he was on course to land even though he crashed?

This is the greatest thread ever. As an aviation enthusiast who logged a solid 6 hours as PIC of a Cessna 172, it definitely brought back "the itch". Sadly, 911 happened, and after the General Aviation blackout was lifted, life priorities shifted.

So many questions, but you earlier mentioned the numerous checklists that you follow on your aircraft - are these publicly available or are the confidential somehow? I'd be curious to see these.

Also, my understanding is that there is a "speed limit" of 250 KIAS under 10,000 feet. Is it hard to get "down" to that speed during your decent? I'd assume you'd want idle thrust descents, so does this mean it's spoilers time often? I don't really notice them much as I'm flying. Or is this 250KIAS thing just a "guideline"?

More pictures please. Cockpit pictures are fascinating to me for some reason.

Beers on me at KROC.

at UA, all elites get access to the e+ seats but only the premier exec and higher get access to the exit rows. these are people with 50000+ miles a year (actually fewer with the promotions, but a hell of a lot of flying each year). I'm guessing that they utility of keeping these guys loyal to the brand is much greater than the chance to score an extra few bucks here and there.
also, the e+ buy-up starts around 25 bucks for shorter flights, so 50 for a transcon, TPAC or TATL would be well below market value.

Is there any sort of a master checklist that tells you when to do which checklist?

Interesting...I've only flown overseas once (ORD to London) and we flew over Greenland on the way back. It was incredible.

My question: I don't know if you heard about the chunk of ice that fell from the sky and hit a house here in Chicago (did quite a bit of damage). There was a lot of speculation that it came from a plane. They just added more flight paths over my house (this happened less than a mile from where I live) and I'm wondering its possible it came from a plane, and if so, how often it happens.

Link to article about ice

I was thinking about Die Hard 2: Die Harder the other day, and was wondering if, realistically, the fuel would be coming out of the plane rapidly enough to burn a trail from the runway up to the plane in flight and explode it.

Yippie-kay-ay Mr. Falcon!

Great thread, OP. I apologize in advance that this is a bit tl;dr.

I'm not a pilot, but while in grad school (aerospace engineering dept), I taught a flight dynamics lab course for a couple of years in which the undergrad students would "fly" a Link GAT flight trainer. Naturally, I became proficient at flying the trainer so that I could help them. (For those of you who don't know, this simulator was mechanical; there was no computer display. The simulated cockpit contained physical analog flight instruments.)

During this time I took 2 actual flying lessons in a Cessna from the university flying club. For the second lesson, I took-off and performed a few turns. My instructor noticed I had a tendency to use the flight instruments rather than look at the horizon, and he encouraged me to ignore the instruments and fly more "intuitively" by looking out the window. (I stopped the lessons due to cost.)

Is is common for student pilots to "overuse" the flight instruments, or was that probably a consequence of my time in the flight trainer? Also, why was he discouraging me from using the instruments? Isn't the point of the more advanced instrument-rated training to rely on them more? Wouldn't inexperienced pilots be less susceptible to spatial disorientation if they relied more on their instruments?

Perhaps you could also comment on spatial disorientation in general. (Is it difficult to train yourself to avoid, etc.)

As someone who worked as a terminal controller I can assure you that the 250kts under 10k is simply a guideline. I have personally asked pilots keep the speed up for spacing but most companies don't like having their equipment flown that way. Luckily for me, the center I worked in was used very heavily by some corporate jets whose pilots loved to treat them like a racecar if it meant they were 1st in line instead of 8th with a pile of vectors for spacing.

Even more fun than those pilots were the military jets flying from and to our military base nearby(Cold Lake) because they fly those CF-18s like they stole them a lot of the time. On extra slow traffic days I could pan my radars focus out wide enough to see their activity within the restricted airspace and watch them simulate dog fights...some pretty amazing aircraft flying there with crazy changes in speed/altitude at the drop of a hat.

I once was flying from Aruba to Newark NJ and on the way home we were in very, very thick cloud coverage. Then, as we were approaching newark, we start taxiing for a very long time, doing circles from newark to baltimore and back again (I could watch on the screen where our location was).

Finally, after about an hour and a half, we are ready to land, the turbulance was for the full hour and a half since the cloud coverage was so thick (I'd say we couldn't see anything until about 500 feet from the ground.

Well, as we're approaching the landing strip, I notice that we pass about 2 fire trucks and ambulances and everyone is like "hmm wonder what happened back there? (because we had passed it). Turns out our reverse thrusts(?) I guess had stopped working and we had to stop on all brakes, which is why we did the circles so that we could slow down our speed as much as possible? Does that sound right? That was the rumor after we got off the plane but of course the pilot kept all of this information privvy to himself.

Anyway, just wondering if you've heard of similar situations, if they are common, and how dangerous that situation was?

I'm not a licensed pilot, but I'm 100% sure you weren't in a holding pattern to reduce airspeed; an airplane can't slow down that much at a given altitude before stalling (angle of attack must increase as thrust and speed decrease), nor would reducing airspeed require a long circling maneuver.

If anything, the pilot was burning fuel to reduce mass, which would require less momentum change and therefore less braking force to stop within a given distance. (Lower weight also implies a lower possible landing speed.) Perhaps more likely, the crew was diagnosing/trying to solve the problem and/or waiting for the ground to get ready for an abnormal landing.

Interesting. I had a similar experience several years ago on a US Airways flight from DC (Ronald Reagan) to Charlotte, NC. Plane was coming into land, very close to landing, then climbed out and circled around. The pilot did announce that the landing was aborted due to "conflicting ground traffic", which I assume meant another plane on the runway. I wasn't really frightened, it was more a "wtf is going on?" experience.

I don't think 'go-arounds' are that uncommon, it happened on a flight I was on due to unexpected crosswind. Slightly unnerving at the time but the pilot did announce what was happening before he lined up for another go.

how long before passengers are able to use cell phones/wireless internet on all flights?

I always noticed that when the flight attendants demonstrate manually inflating a life vest, they blow into the tubes almost as if they are playing a flute. I assume (though I've never actually been told) that you should actually forcefully blow into the tubes kind of like blowing up a balloon. I've guessed that the reason that they demonstrate the way they do is to avoid passing germs (I don't know why each flight attendant can't have their own demonstration life vest).

But on my last flight (which was on delta BTW), they had the safety lecture on a video, and again the demonstration was a flight attendant playing a flute with the life vest tube. This makes no sense to me at all. What's up with this?

Thanks for reminding me of this terrible movie! It's been years since I saw it, but I think I can still remember the major shortcomings.

Almost nothing was realistic as far as the ATC and flying. Especially in today's world of GPS, that kind of thing just couldn't happen. We don't rely on just one indication...situation awareness (SA) is huge in our business.

Two of the most glaring things wrong:

(1) acting as if these pilots had no alternative to the radio frequency that the bad guys hijacked. We always have 121.5 (emergency or "Guard") which is monitored (guarded) by all ATC facilities and most airliners. (We monitor this frequency on Comm #2 throughout the flight.)

(2) Altering the glideslope so that the planes flew into the ground. This one really gets me. Although I guess it's theoretically possible to change the signal being radiated for the glideslope on the ILS (Instrument Landing System), it's not like we don't crosscheck our altitude against other things, like the airport elevation!! Our planes are also equipped with Radar Altimeters which give a readout above the ground whenever we are within 2500' of the ground. (We sometimes get a readout from a plane passing beneath us when out on the North Atlantic Tracks.)

I don't know about being publicly available, but I can see no reason why they would be confidential. I just spent about 10 minutes searching the Delta employees web site for a copy of the checklist, but had no luck. It's got to be there somewhere and I'll see if I can find it later and post here. There's nothing remarkable about it...just like what you saw in a C-172, though with a few more items perhaps.

You are right about the speed limit (and it's not just a guideline), though it varies in Europe. Out of Moscow, it's 270 kts below 3600 meters (iirc), and European Departure controllers will often approve "no speed restrictions in the climb", which means we can ignore whatever limit they have. That never happens in the U.S. (with one exception: Houston allows a 300 kt speed on departure and I can only assume that this was some kind of experiment by the FAA).

With good planning, spoilers are not necessary. In level flight, you can bleed off about 10 kts per nm (nautical mile) in level flight with the power at idle. So, if I'm descending at 320 kts, I'll allow an extra 7 miles of level flight at 10,000 in my calculations to make whatever restriction we've been given. In the MD-88, use of spoilers was sort of frowned upon. I mean, you used them if you needed them, but it was kind of an admission of not using good energy management. On the 767 and especially the 757 (which is a very slick airplane that doesn't like to slow), use of spoilers is almost the rule.

Here's one that a friend just sent me on Facebook, showing a Northwest Airbus cockpit. I'll post some good (serious) ones later. Right now, I'm in Vegas and I need to go play some poker.



Fond memories of flights into ROC, BUF and SYR in the winter...some of the heaviest snow I've ever seen. Landing on a runway with blowing snow is quite the vertigo-inducing experience.

I don't think I'll be able to ask anything that hasn't been asked 10 times already, but thanks for this awesome thread, definitely right at the top of the heap of the Ask Me thread. I had some homework to do and a copy to prepare for when I go on the air tomorrow and both of those went right by the wayside when I started reading.

Great job W0X0F, and lol at that cockpit.

Great thread!
I used to fly a lot, and have had a few "close encounters". But I have some questions not previously asked:

1) On an episode of NCIS about a Medal of Honor winner, it was mentioned that they can fly free whenever they want. Is this true and have you ever had one on board?

2) I used to fly a lot from SFO to SBA, and once when landing, the pilot turned the wrong way off the runway and ended up at the Guppy hanger. How much trouble was he in? (Off topic - ever seen a Guppy take off? It is quite a sight.)

Thanks!

Hmm, the FAA must be far more strict about terminal speed restrictions than Transport Canada because we very regularly released speed restrictions on pilots descending into the Edmonton international and municipal airports in order to sequence more effectively. Major carriers were generally bound by company guidelines and wouldn't deviate from the 250 kts limit but almost every smaller company and corporate we dealt with would go balls to the wall to get home faster. I would be willing to guess that I personally released speed restrictions(and even asked pilots to keep the speed up as long as possible) 15 to 20 times a day at least.

I thought of a question (I think) no one has asked so far:

If I were to get an authentic looking pilot uniform, and a somewhat authentic looking ID badge, what do you think my chances are for scoring a free jump seat flight?

I had meant to post this earlier and I'm behind so maybe it was answered, but W0X0F what's your take on this hypothetical?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34...o-long-189940/

Obviously you could do this no problem, but what are the chances some random dude would make it to Hawaii in a plane?

No. That's just procedural. Here's the normal checklists we have:

Before Start - fairly long checklist done anytime before closing the main cabin door and after we have received our clearance (which includes route of flight, departure procedure and transponder code)

Pushback/Start - Short checklist done right when the main cabin door is closed and we are ready to pushback. This one makes sure such items as hydraulic pumps and fuel pumps are on, and the takeoff trim is set.

After Start - done immediately after starting an engine. We often start only one engine in order to save fuel. We start the other engine about 5-10 minutes before takeoff.

Taxi check - very short, confirms flight controls are functioning properly and that the takeoff flaps are selected and indicating normal

Delayed Start - done if we taxied out on one engine (includes an After Start checklist)

Before Takeoff - everything is ready for takeoff

After Takeoff - once flaps are up, the flying pilot calls for this one.

Cruise - as we pass 18,000' the flying pilot calls for this

Descent - passing 18,000 on the way down

Approach - in the airport traffic area

Landing - gear down? that's a big one! (also check flaps here)

After Landing - clearing the runway the Captain calls for this

Shutdown - at the gate, after engines are shutdown

Secure - if leaving the plane for an extended period (>3 hours); we pull some circuit breakers and essentially leave the airplane dark and cold

Besides these, we also have some informal lists of things to check at various points in an ocean crossing, but these are not done in the same way, i.e. there is no challenge-response. Instead, it's just a printed guide that a lot of pilots refer to rather than trust to memory.

I wasn't aware of this. I have heard of "blue ice", which is what happens if there is a leak at the lav service door. The blue juice can ooze out and freeze causing a build-up. At some point it can break free. (we check for any indication of leaks at the lav door on our walkaround; the blue streaks on the fuselage are a dead giveaway). But I never figured it could be very big.

There are drain masts on the bottom of the plane for water that might accumulate or leak (includes the potable water which is stored in tanks) but these masts are heated for the sole purpose of avoiding ice build-up. One possibility is that the drain mast heater failed and thus allowed the slowly dripping water to accumulate into a large iceball.

Airframe ice (due to flight in clouds or precip) breaking away would be small chunks I would think; I've never seen airframe ice anything like that in the article.

No way. Just another Hollywood suspension of disbelief. This would be an easy one for mythbusters to expose. Even if the stream on the ground would ignite, there's no way that the leak from the wing would leave an atomized path of fuel from the ground to the wing.