Have you been keeping the recirc fans on?

Without being results oriented (spoiler: he lands), what would you rate the chances of a guy with 80 hours of single engine time being able to land a King Air after the pilot dies during takeoff ascent?

I came across this in another forum today. It’s a few years old now, so forgive me if it has been posted here before, but it is certainly worth a watch.

It’s a brief video about a young USAAF pilot who flew solo reconnaissance missions over Europe in an unarmed Spitfire. There is a particularly great part where he is shown footage of himself crash landing 50 years after it happened!



Hope you enjoy.

That was amazing. Thank you for posting.

That's fascinating. I can understand people doubting that a Spitfire could get to Berlin and back, but clearly it could do with the modifications they made.

Excellent documentary.

the pilot in that documentary has an amazing cool and focused disposition - no wonder he was such an elite pilot.

Flew twice last week and not a single attendant/stewardess were wearing masks, just seemed strange to me as they must come in contact with a decent amount of people.

I wasnt wearing one either but might rethink it if i had a job where you're constantly in close contact with people.

Your mask is making you....

Not posting this for a comment on the SWA incident, but for the depiction of a rejected landing beginning at 9:04 in the video. What are those things spinning around furiously on the left and right side of the center console?

Those are mechanical trim wheels, which spin furiously anytime electric trim is engaged. This could be when a pilot uses the trim switch on the control yoke or when the autopilot adjusts the pitch (elevator) trim, which it does often during descents and climbs.

The 737 is the only jet I’ve flown which has mechanical trim wheels and I found them very annoying. I’m not sure why this particular Boeing model was designed with this feature, but it’s quirky to say the least. The only time a pilot would use the trim wheel (rather than electric trim) would be during an abnormal situation when directed by the QRH. In my brief time (15 months) flying the 737, I never saw anyone use them. I used them once during initial training on the 737 after an electric trim failure.

From reddit today: Two planes making out and creating a little baby airplane. I think that's how the cessna is made...

The Qantas is on a short final as the Air NZ takes off from a parallel runway. The parallel runways at Sydney Airport are actually just over a kilometre apart, crazy how the perspective can change with a telephoto lens.

Credits: Damien Aiello https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/7334014

The near plane is an Airbus 319 or 320, which is much smaller then the Airbus 380 in the background. This helps with the illusion that it’s two similarly sized planes in close proximity.

yeah, it's an A320.
The A380 in the background is ~240 feet long, and the A320 in the foreground is ~100 feet long.

I keep forgetting to ask:

I saw that Delta's retiring 777s.

I think that's the plane you fly (?). Does that have any affect on you?

Can you schedule it so you fly the last 777 on your last trip to tie up both things at once?

My current category is NYC/7ER/A

NYC = New York base (comprises JFK, LGA, EWR)
7ER = 767-ER and 757
A = Captain

I never flew the 777 and I would have loved to. Everyone who flies it says it’s a great plane.

At this time, I wonder if I’ll get another flight in a big plane before my retirement at the end of August. I haven’t flown since March 25th, when I flew an empty 767 from JFK to Wilmington, OH. Delta is saying that they currently have about 7000 pilots more than they need...a tad more than half the seniority list. A bid just closed last night for a reshuffling of seat assignments and I’ll probably get displaced from my current seat. In fact, I might be shoved back to the right seat. Not that it matters much at this point since I’m about done, but it’s very disappointing. Heartbreaking in a way.

That’s the nature of this business. I was just talking to my first officer a few months ago about the vagaries of the industry and how we are so vulnerable to outside effects. 9/11 pushed the profession back decades in terms of compensation. This guy was slated to upgrade to 737 Captain this summer. Of course that’s not happening now and he may well find himself out of a job until the industry recovers.

No one foresaw a natural event like this pandemic, which is causing such devastation in the industry. I feel bad for the young guys whose careers were just getting going.

a good friend's son got his private license and was in the middle of teaching to log the required hours/experience to take the next step. as you can guess it's been challenging of late.

also curious what you mean about this
what is offered in exchange as part of the bid process?

Sorry about that ...a bit of jargon. The bidding process, which Delta calls an Advanced Entitlement or AE, is the company’s way of creating, maintaining and adjusting crew staffing for the various aircraft, bases and seats (Captain vs first officer).

In times of stagnation (e.g. the first years post 9/11), there is little movement and everyone maintains status quo. Contrast this with boom times: the company purchases 6 new Airbus 350 aircraft. This will require about 30-36 more captains and first officers. But pilots only change planes or upgrade as part of the bid process, so the company announces an AE.

This bid has a close date and after that date, the company awards the seats based on seniority. And it’s not just the pilots bidding for those new seats that are affected. Remember, the guy who gets awarded Captain of the 350 was previously in some other seat, perhaps a 767 Captain or a 777 FO. His moving creates a new vacancy for his old seat which has to be filled and so there is a cascading effect. I made captain of the 767 when someone else changed planes or retired.

Conversely to the boom times, we have bust times. After 9/11, and certainly now with COVID, the routes and number of aircraft has changed dramatically. So now there is another AE, eliminating seats. The bid closed three days ago and we’re waiting to see the effect. I had to put in my “standing bid” which details the seats I want in the order I prefer. My bid had a first choice of NYC/7ER/A, i.e. my current seat. But I know I won’t be able to hold that, so my next choices were for Captain of other aircraft types in NY, followed by Captain of ATL and DTW aircraft, followed by first officer of the 767, and so on.

To my knowledge, the company hasn’t announced furloughs yet but it’s inevitable. Readers of this thread may remember that I was furloughed from Delta from 3/2/02 to 6/2/05, during which time I returned to ACA and taught CRJ systems and then served as chief pilot for two and a half years. A furlough is a lay-off, but you retain your position on the seniority list which means you will be recalled to duty when staffing permits.

It’s an ugly situation for everyone. I’m certainly not happy about it and I could feel sorry for myself, but I’m on my way out anyway and there are millions of people in worse situations. The worst part for me is being stuck on the ground. I wanted to get as much flying in the 757 and 767 as I could in my last months. Now I feel like Henry Hill after being put into witness protection and being sent to live in Midwest suburbia: I’m just an average schnook.

What's the chance that you get furloughed before retirement date?

If you do, does that mean you lose all those years of work (I assume there's a pension or something involved)? Or would you just have to 'wait it out', and come back for a month or two whenever things recover?

0%

There are about 8,000 guys junior to me.

There used to be a pension, but the company used 9/11 as a pretext to eliminating our pension, leaving us with whatever we can bank in 401(k) retirement funds.

Welp, I finally did this. Wikipedia's editing language is archaic as ****. I felt like I was programming a 1990s webpage.

Welch already has one, and it has some inaccuracies in it that I'm not sure if I want to get in to the editing war to deal with.

nice work Garick. some folks should be memoralized.

Strange times. Went from possibility of <2 year upgrade to happy to have a job to out of a job all in the span of a few weeks. Turns out being first to go might have been a blessing as I landed on my feet at a cargo company where I'll be on the same airframe as WX.

Good luck to you. Hope big D adds some capacity and you get to fly again before you retire.

Thanks Wondercall. I’m really hoping to get some more flights in the 757 or 767 before the end of the summer. If not, at least I did have the satisfaction of a greaser landing on my last flight, even if only one other person witnessed it.

A cargo company is a good place to be. Their business hasn’t been affected at all.

now i'm curious...based on your years of experience and number of landings, would you guess your standards to call a landing 'greased' are higher than average?

Same here. I just realize my oldest son went from elementary school to University during the years I read this thread