On the topic of fuel dumping...

I never had occasion to do this in my entire career. In fact, the 767 was the only plane I flew that had dump capability. As the Wikipedia article mentioned, fuel dumping might be called for if there was a need to land early in the flight. For example, you have a bird strike right after takeoff and lose an engine. Takeoff weight was 400,000 lbs and max landing weight is 325,000 lbs (I’m making that number up; I can’t recall the actual max landing weight). We need to dump 75,000 lbs of fuel (about 11,250 gallons).

On the 767-300ER, we could pump fuel overboard at the rate of 2600 lbs/minute. Ideally, you’d go to a sufficient altitude so that the fuel atomizes completely before reaching the earth. I know Delta had an instance of fuel dumping at a fairly low altitude one time and over a school...not good PR. Dumping 75,000 lbs would take almost a half hour, time you don’t want to take if you’ve got an engine on fire or some other time critical emergency. In this case, you just land and focus on a minimal descent rate at touchdown. After landing, an “overweight landing” would be entered in the aircraft logbook so that maintenance would perform a check of aircraft structural integrity.

Many years ago, the FAA would be all over a pilot who landed over weight and might take certificate action if the reason wasn’t deemed good enough by them. In the last 15 years or so, this way of thinking has changed and now fuel dumping would be the exception rather than the rule. An overweight landing is done at the Captain’s discretion with emphasis on a gentle touchdown (and still followed by the maintenance check).

My father told me that fuel dumping was routine when he flew off the carrier in the Navy. He flew the A-3D, the largest jet ever used in carrier ops, and it was very common to dump down to landing weight before coming back aboard the boat. Jet fuel was about $0.15/gallon in the early 60’s. I don’t think the Navy still does the dumping as a routine operation.

(Any Navy guy you talk to will know that A-3D stood for “all three dead”, a reference to the fact there were 3 crew members on board and no ejection seats. In an emergency, the crew egressed through the bottom of the aircraft. This meant that a takeoff or landing mishap in this plane was usually fatal for the crew. In fact, my dad’s best friend, Bill Reyn, from the same hometown of Sheboygan Wisconsin, died during a Med cruise on the USS Independence in 1960 or 61 when his A-3D’s went off the side of the carrier as a result of a landing mishap. There was no way for the crew to escape. It was deep water and I don’t think the plane was ever recovered. I’m still friends and in touch with his daughter Paula who went to kindergarten with me in Sanford, Florida.)

I was on a UA 737-900 on Sunday where they asked for volunteers to move to the back of the plane. What a coincidence.

That is unusual for a 737, although the 900 is the longest version and therefore has a long moment arm for the aft section. I never had this situation when I flew the 737 (I flew the 700, 800, and 900 models.)

I believe you are thinking of the Arrow Air DC-8 crash in 1985. The crew used the 170lb base and the actual average weight was over 220lb. Ultimately, this was not found to be the actual cause of the accident (which remains somewhat controversial, with both icing and an explosion being blamed by some of the NTSB investigators). See this article for instance

The current FAA rule calls for 205lb in summer, 210lb in winter for men. United has had to block off from 3 to 6 seats in winter for their 757 fleet. so it doesn't just affect RJs any more.

Yes, that’s the flight I was thinking of. I wasn’t aware that the probable cause was found to be something else.

I also didn’t know they raised standard weights so dramatically. Twenty five years ago, I think we used 170 in the summer and 175 in the winter for all adults, men and women. “Adult” was anyone older than 12 or 15, can’t remember the cutoff point now. At Delta, I don’t recall ever blocking off rows on the 757. We often went out with a butt in every seat.

APU out of service but we're going anyway. How common is this WOXOF?

Does APU stand for McDonald's shake machine?

Not terribly common, but I’ve run into this now and then. It comes in 3 flavors: (1) total unavailability; (2) APU runs but won’t supply electrical power (i.e. the APU generator is INOP); (3) APU runs but won’t supply pneumatics.

The APU is primarily used at the gate to provide electrical power to the plane and also pneumatics for air conditioning and engine start. Having no APU at all means we need conditioned air supplied to the ship’s pneumatic ducting from an AC cart, and ground power must be attached for powering electrical systems. Additionally a huffer cart will be needed to start the first engine. (The second engine can be started using bleed air from the first engine.) If the APU runs but lacks electrical or pneumatic output, some source for that will be needed at the gate.

Once both engines are running, we normally shut down the APU until after landing at our destination. But if one of the engine-driven generators is INOP then we leave the APU running for the entire flight as a backup electrical source. Or if an engine-driven generator fails during flight, we would start the APU so that it’s immediately available in the (extremely) unlikely failure of the other engine-driven generator. We’re all about redundancy.

For long over-water flights, the lack of an APU imposes limits on what we can do. I can’t actually remember if it’s a no-go item, or if it simply requires a flight path closer to emergency divert airports. This is when we reference the MEL (Minimum Equipment List) for the restrictions pertinent to our type of flight. In the 767-ER, we normally operated as ETOPS 120, i.e. we had to be within 120 minutes of a divert field in case of engine failure. With an INOP APU, that might restrict us to ETOPS 60, which means a more northerly flight path crossing the Atlantic.

I never had to commit those type of restrictions to memory because I’d always check the MEL. Restrictions could also vary by theater of operations, i.e. whether we’re flying to Europe or South America.

The next-to-last paragraphs surprises me. I would not have guessed that transoceanic flights (say, LA to Sydney or NYC to Rome or whatever) are always within 120 minutes of a place to divert to.

If you’re interested in how airport codes came to be:

Kind of related to IA's post...I wasn't here yet when DEN changed form Stapleton to DIA.

Looking around, it seems like it was an overnight switchover of equipment, rental cars, etc, etc.

Is there a homing beacon sort of thing that was switched off at Stapleton and turned on at DIA for aircraft en route? If so, would this cause course corrections?

Who knows, maybe in those days there were no early-morning arrivals, or they didn't have flights incoming that first morning.

WOXOF you ever get paired up with a pilot for a flight and by the end think "This guy is an amazingly skilled pilot, I hope to be like him someday" or OTOH "how the hell did this guy get certified"?

My fleet (B767-ER) we’re certified for ETOPS 120. But other fleets can and do have different ETOPS limitations. I think the max is ETOPS 240.

ETOPS does not apply to four engine planes (747, Airbus 340 and 380). They have no such limitations due to the extra redundancy in powerplants.

It may have been mentioned before but for those interested in reviews/explanations of aviation incidents and/or accidents Mentour Pilot on youtube does an awesome job.

ETOPS-120 changed the game dramatically. Here is a map that shows the 120 mile range for a typical plane on one remaining engine:



The blue circles show the range from the two primary diversion airports, Gander & Reykjavik. The only no-go area in the North Atlantic is the very darkest shading to the southwest of the Azores (Terceira).

It is generally not possible to fly from LA to Sydney on a twin-engine plane using ETOPS-120. Flights to New Zealand and Australia from the US are generally run by planes with ETOPS-180 certification. That still may require a minor detour as shown on the map below:



I'm not sure what the maximum ETOPS is now, but I think its like 300 or something, which covers everything on the globe except maybe parts of Antarctica. I suspect if it was financially desirable to do so, they'd probably approve whatever distance was needed to permit it, but I think even flying from Australia to Chile, it actually is better to fly a more northerly path to capture the trade winds.

The A350 XWB was first to receive an ETOPS-370 prior to entry into service by European authorities,[13] enabling economical nonstop routes between Europe and Oceania (and thereby bypassing historical stopovers across Asia and North America) by the late 2010s and early 2020s. This includes the high-demand London-Sydney route, in the latest development for ultra long-haul flights. The A350 XWB's current ETOPS certification covers 99.7% of the Earth's entire surface, allowing point-to-point travel anywhere in the world except directly over the South Pole.

Ref: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/ETOPS

Came back from Europe last week and flew Heathrow to Denver. We took a path directly NW of London flying over England then straight through Iceland and Greenland then when over Canada turned toward Denver. Is this normal?

Most of the flight was at 34,000 and watching the computer the plane never went below 33,995 or above 34,005. Pretty incredible.

First time on a 787 and love the dimmable windows.

How would you expect the flight to go?

Shortest path: https://www.greatcirclemap.com/?routes=LHR-DEN

When I've come back from Europe, the route's always been over Greenland/Northern Canada. Pretty incredible scenery if it's daytime and clear out.=--glaciers with mountaintops poking out all around.

Of course, you meant 120 minute range (much more than 120 miles).

Interesting discussion of an accident. I could definitely relate. The aircraft is an MD-82 and the cockpit pics bring back a flood of memories. Also, the topic of checklist discipline sparked some memories. I had a few significant experiences with this.

This is closer to what I expected. Seemed more north than what I was expecting.

Here's BA219 from Nov 30: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/f...ba219#2e6217fd

Seems pretty consistent for the last 7 days. That path might be required for ETOPS/diversion purposes. IANAP.

What's the most unprofessional thing you've done in flight?