What if you count takeoffs?

You've got to have some kind of metric and I guess time at the controls makes the most sense (though, of course, we make no distinction between hand flying and just monitoring the autopilot). But the more time you have in a control seat, the more opportunity there will be for dealing with with varied flight conditions and random situations. There's a lot that goes on between the takeoff and landing that taps a pilot's experience.

You can always log "solo" time.

Sick retort

I'd be a General.

Do you keep track of the regional game at all? Any thoughts on the regional model and what the future holds for it?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aeromex...ional-airport/

In your opinion, is there something particular about SFO that leads to these problems, as opposed to an airport like ATL which has two sets of parallel runways, and yet doesn't seem to have these issues?

It seems like each time this happens, it's runway(s) 28. Could the approach over water be stripping pilots of other visual guidelines to the correct runway?

“Baseball legend Roy Halladay had amphetamines, morphine and traces of a drug used to treat insomnia in his system”

Thoughts? Should he not have been flying?


https://www.google.com/amp/www.nydai...icle-1.3766855

This might shock you, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say he shouldn't have been flying with these drugs in his system.

If I had a random drug test and was found to have this cocktail in my system, I'd be out of a job.

Ever been on a flight where people joined the mile high club? I was going to try recently but it was way too tight .

Underage?

Not while we flew over Alabama.

I don’t know how they judge commercial flying vs. private vs. driving.

All drugs were legally prescribed. You are permitted to take medication for pain or insomnia, correct? I don’t want my pilot in agony or sleep deprived.

Is it the type of medication or the amount he took?

Have a ton of private pilots in my medical practice. Who obviously get prescriptions for various ailments.

I would think newer planes are going 'fly by wire'. Is there a size of plane making this easier or harder? Will this technology allow someone to hack into the computer (either from a port on the plane or via modem to computer on plane) and assume control of the plane, bypassing the cockpit?

Hey W0X0F,
Any updates on you getting back in the seat?

This have any merit?

Yes, there is an update. Twelve days ago, I got a call from a doctor at the FAA in Oklahoma City. He told me he had "good news": they were going to give me a special issuance medical certificate and I should receive it within a week. The special issuance just means that the duration of the medical certificate is only six months and I would need further diagnostics (CT scan) each time it comes up for renewal.

My medical oncologist wrote a letter in August of 2016 stating that I could resume full duties, so it's only taken the FAA 18 months to act on that.

I sent the medical certificate and special issuance authorization in to Delta and next step is to get a training schedule created to get me current and qualified. I'm not sure how long that might take. It's possible I could be heading to Atlanta within the next two weeks, or there could easily be up to a couple of months delay just to fit me into the pipeline. Simulator time is pretty tightly scheduled and the schedules are created well in advance.

Here's an interesting wrinkle: my category (NYC/MD-88) is being phased out. So, I have choices coming up. I could elect to stay on the MD-88 and be Atlanta based, or I could choose any aircraft/seat which has been awarded to any pilot junior to me during my absence.

If I want to stay in New York, I could hold Captain of the Boeing 737 or the Airbus 320. I don't think I can quite hold Captain of the 757/767, which would be my first choice if I could get it. I could also elect to go back to the right seat of any international category, such as the Airbus 330 or Boeing 777. I kind of miss the international flying, but the left seat is just so much more comfortable.

Anyway, I'll have to make that decision soon because that will obviously drive my training schedule. No matter what plane I choose, I'll have to spend about a month inn Atlanta.

IMO, the answer is no. There are too many variables and flaws with this concept to discuss in a quick response and I don't have the energy at the moment.

Glad to hear that you are on track to get back to work!

W0X0F, I can't help myself about that youtube video, I hope you don't mind.

About that parachute passenger section:

Air travel is so incredibly safe that any large change is likely to be orders of magnitude more dangerous. It's possible that adding that much weight and complexity increases risk by 10-100x. Even if there WAS a safety benefit, would anyone really think that that was a good way to reduce death in the world?

With something like 30,000 airliners in the world currently flying, and $30mm each to upgrade to this scheme, you'd be looking at 900 billion USD spent on the refit. Let's say the increased weight and space of the system means that aircraft lose 30% of their capacity. Now let's be very conservative and say that airline costs only go up 10% based on this (between increased fuel burn, maintenance, and smaller capacity, costs would be much, much higher than 10%). That's 70 billion USD per year.

So that's 900 billion up front, then 70 billion per year increasing forever. And these are very low estimates. In 2017 there were no airline accidents, and accidents in general are extremely rare. So let's say there are 200 deaths per year from accidents, and perhaps 35% of those could be prevented with this scheme (no take-off or landing accidents would be helped by it. No CFIT [controlled flight into terrain] or intentional crashes could be prevented). So that's 70 deaths per year you are saving, at a start up cost of 900 billion, and ongoing costs of 70 billion per year.

There are estimates that you can save one life in the third world with around $3000. That means your 900 billion could save 300 million lives, and 25 million every year thereafter, from things like disease and lack of clean water. You could spend 900 billion on medical research or spend it giving free internet to the entire world, or save the rainforests and prevent global warming. You could give 900 billion dollars cash for people to burn for heat in their homes and get a better outcome than this ejection scheme.

The increased airfares would cause more people to drive instead of fly, which would result in more road deaths. For the people that do end up flying, they now have less money to spend on health care and safer cars, which means more people end up dying.

Thank you Hero!

That was exactly the response that I didn't have the energy for. 😊

This is just a common engineering thing that I feel like a lot of people don't understand. I have semi-regular discussions with junior people that want to solve every single problem that they see. But if the problem happens only once a year and doesn't have a big cost when it does happen - the solution is almost certainly going to be much worse in the short and medium term, and probably long term too.

W0X0F - Glad to hear you've cleared the FAA hurdle and I hope the rest of the process goes a lot faster and smoother!

Hell, a .02 BAC can be enough to be problematic if I remember FAA guidelines correctly...

First, good news! I hope you're able to get back in the addle as quickly as possible.

Second, flying back into Denver Sunday was pretty rough on the descent. As we're waiting to get off, another passenger commented to that effect, and I said it seems like going to DIA is always kind of bumpy (this was more than normal). Of course, the pilots were pros and got us through it.

I've always kind of figured that it was proximity to the mountains did something to the air to make it unstable for those last 20 minutes or so. Do you happen to know if a) this is actually true and b) if so, what is the reason for DIA being a rougher entry than flatland places?

This made me lol. I know you just inadvertently left off the 's' (right?), but the result seemed kind of funny:

ad·dle verb
1. make unable to think clearly; confuse.



Yes, there's definitely an orographic effect and, as you might expect, it's worse on the downwind, or leeward, side of the mountains. I've flown into Denver and Colorado Springs many times and it's often a bouncy ride below 10,000'.

I remember a flight in a light airplane years ago, when the ink on my license was still wet, where I was flying parallel to the Blue Ridge mountains here in Virginia. I experienced downdrafts so strong that I was descending at 500 fpm even though I had max power and I was flying at the Best-Rate-of-Climb speed (also known as Vy to pilots). The only escape from this situation was to turn east and fly away from the mountains. Very similar to the concept of an undertow in the ocean.

One visual cue that will let you know to expect turbulence is the presence of standing lenticular clouds over the mountains. They look calm, but always indicate strong airflow over the peaks.

I believe the FAR is 0.04% but there's a rule pilots go by which is "12 hours from bottle to throttle" meaning no drinks for 12 hours before a flight.

It's official. I've been given a training schedule for Captain of the 737. I'll be in Atlanta March 4-31. (Of course, it could all be derailed if my CT scan on March 1st shows any recurrence of liposarcoma.)

I ended up choosing the 737 over the Airbus for two reasons: higher pay rate and better trips (including the Caribbean and trans-cons). I think the 737 is still the only fleet we have that's equipped with HUD, which will be new for me.

I'll post some updates during training to share the experience with you.