Do you know or know of anyone that knows what happend to the 2 pilots that had the midair collision with the GOL flight in 2006 over Brazil? They were flying for Excelair out of NJ or NY delivering a new Legacy, N600XL. I am just trying to give as much info as possible.
They musta freaked when they realized they clip another plan at 37

when you fly from Nice to JFK you follow that nice arc that follows the curvature of the earth...how many miles does that save you approximately than if you just set course 270 and went straight?

how much leeway do you get within your assigned altitude? can you be +/- 100 feet and notice but not worry about getting back to the exact altitude? the displayed altitude is measuring AGL from where exactly? is it from the bottom of the landing gear? hull? wings? probably makes no difference in a little cessna but a 747 is a good 7 stories tall.

So is there any way I can know the size of the plane by the #'s, like a pattern? Or do you just have to know how big they are.

What you're talking about is the difference between flying the great circle route vs. flying the rhumb line.

If you take a string and connect two points on a globe, you've got the great circle route...the shortest distance between those points. If you draw a straight line on a Mercator projection map, you've got the rhumb line which looks like the shortest route, but isn't.

I found a site that will calculate both the great circle and rhumb line distances, given the Lat/Lon of two points on the earth. (http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html)

For Nice to JFK, the great circle route is ~3980 miles and the rhumb line distance is ~4153 miles...a difference of only 173 miles.

All other things being equal, we'd like to fly the great circle route but there are other considerations -- winds, turbulence, convective activity -- that often dictate a different route.


The altitude alerter (an audible horn) will go off if we stray from the selected altitude by 250 ft or more, and it's about the same amount of deviation that's going to get the attention of a controller and prompt that bone chilling query, "Delta 123, say your altitude." (It really does tighten the old sphincter to hear that one.)

Of course, the autopilot will never stray by this amount. When we hand fly, we'll probably allow ourselves +/- 50' at the most, but it's sloppy to wallow around an altitude and most guys will be keeping it right on the number.

The Radar Altimeter will start indicating when we're within 2500 ft of the ground and sometimes will activate if a plane flies directly under us...we get an echo off that plane and the RA will read 1000 or 2000 depending on the plane's relative altitude. At touchdown, the RA indicates 0 or -2 ft, so I guess you could say it's the distance measured from the mains but, of course, that's not where it's located; it's just calibrated that way.

Sorry, there's no relationship between the model number and the size of the airplane.

Just two different manufacturers, but here's some basic differences that come immediately to mind:

Boeing

American company
traditional manufacturing techniques (787 notwithstanding)
traditional control wheel configuration
mechanical flight controls to hydraulic actuation

Airbus

European consortium
extensive use of composite materials
side stick controller
fly-by-wire flight controls

Great thread!

What domestic route is notoriously known for the most difficult or annoying passengers? I heard from a FA that NYC to Southern Florida is usually bad.

Also, how do you like HPN? I live in the area and love flying out of it, especially since I've taken private pilot lessons there.

Got one more question...I was flying from Puerto Rico back to JFK and the pilot was expecting heavy turbulence to start momentarily due to a storm in the area. He made a PA asking everyone to quickly close all of the air vents in the cabin. Why did he make us do this?

I think Boeing are catching up with Airbus on the FBW front.

If you want to produce the most efficient aircraft FBW is pretty much unavoidable.

Man if these guys only knew about this thread they could have asked their questions here and be in sunny cuba with a cold beer!

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/sto...-security.html

Found this great Youtube channel with lots of Mayday type episodes.

http://www.youtube.com/user/VibraciaX#p/u/4/M5WhKulJY30

Salary we on?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCDx776UCgc

The FAs would have stronger opinions on that than we do up front...we just don't deal with passengers as much as they do.

A lot of the Florida flights have the "miraculous cures" -- people take a wheelchair to board the plane, but then don't need one to deplane. It might have something to do with the fact that wheelchair passengers get priority on boarding, but usually wait until last to deplane. I've had flights to Florida with as many as a dozen wheelchairs required.


White Plains was fine. It has only 4 gates and the ground personnel are employees of the city or county, not the airlines. Having only 4 gates occasionally caused problems, especially during IRROPS (irregular operations such as snow). Even someone with a mechanical problem at the gate could cause big problems with parking.

I also remember that HPN could have some really bad morning fog due to its proximity to the Hudson River and L.I. Sound.

I have no idea what that's about and I can't even imagine what good this would do. If anything, I'd want those vents wide open to put maximum air on the passengers. It's been my experience that keeping passengers cool and ventilated is the best protection against airsickness.

In that case, she is a tough one to please!

approximately how many 763s does Delta have operating these days? is there any variation at all in the configuration of the cockpit (think getting into your car after you lend it to someone and they change the radio stations, reset all the displays etc.) when you fly your routes or is that just not an issue on commercial aircraft?

on a A320 flight from New Orleans to NY I can distinctly remember after taking off from runway 10 we started to turn left while on climb and i felt sucked into the chair like I have never felt before. It felt like my brain was being pulled towards the seat for about 10 seconds and then smoothed out. Overall it was actually kind of cool...is there any kind of guidelines for the level of g forces are too much for passengers? does ATC ever give you tight turns with steep bank angles kind of like Pushing Tin?

how will seniority work on the 787?

Hi WOXOF,

I've a question or two, just something I found curious at the time.

I once flew from Orlando to Newark on a 757 or 767, and the pilot flew a route over land, following the Alantic coast of Florida instead of the shorter direct route over the ocean (which we followed on the way down to Orlando). I thought this might be because it was a plane configured for domestic operations over land only and didn't have the necessary equipment for flight over water. Would that make sense?

Anyway, I landed at Newark to change to the plane for the rest of my journey across the Atlantic to Ireland. As luck would have it, we got back on the same plane, in fact I
had the exact same seat. So it obviously was configured for transoceanic flight.

Any idea why they'd choose the longer overland route instead of the direct one to Newark. The weather seemed perfect, calm clear conditions. What other things influence route selection? How often would the chosen route in preflight planning be
altered by ATC or the crew during the flight?

Great thread, BTW, very interesting reading, it warranted my first post to 2p2!!

Thanks
dof

I think we have 80 of the 767-300.

When we get in to the plane, we set it up for the takeoff and that means reseting the initial assigned altitude, the expected initial heading and loading the flight plan. Other switch positions are caught on the pre-flight of the overhead panel, usually done by the non-flying pilot. Nothing too odd here, though we occasionally find something unexpected (usually because a mechanic has been on the plane). For example, we might find the yaw dampers in the off position, something that we never do (unless directed by the QRH in an abnormal situation), or the engine anti-ice might be off (we always leave this in the AUTO position).

I enjoyed that movie, but it was ridiculous in its portrayal of ATC. It made it look like those guys are threading the needle with airplanes and barely avoiding mid-air collisions.

Sometimes ATC will ask us to "expedite" a turn, probably because they're getting close to violating minimum separation. Not that there's any immediate risk, but they don't want the automatic software snitch to flag them.

In normal ops you should never feel any g forces like you describe. I might be a little more aggresive with a climb or bank when flying an empty plane (which sometimes occurs, either a ferry flight or a reposition), but not with passengers.

Just like every other plane. When deliveries are imminent, we will have a bid and those senior enough will be able to fly it.

Your first guess sounded plausible, but since you ruled that out I can only think it was due to weather. That direct route takes us over a hundred miles off shore and even though you had nice weather, there could have been something nasty offshore. That's really all I can think of.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34...rorist-680277/

comment?

I've got a lot of reading to catch up on this thread so these questions may have been asked.

1. I love the program Mayday. Most catastrophes seem to involve new planes or new situations but during the last episode I saw on NextGen they avoided that idea. I think when NextGen is introduced it will be two years before I get on a plane. What do you know about it and what are your opinions? Will it be up and running before you retire? [They said the old system of see and avoid was not feasible, but NextGen sounds like electronic see and avoid.]

2. They have a nifty program called Ice Pilots, DC-3's in the Arctic. Would you like to make your money that way?

Has this ever been done? Maybe S. California?

You know how sometimes when you're reading someone's writing that you don't know and you automatically come up with a fictional image and voice in your head of what they look and sound like? Well it just occured to me that the image and voice I have been imagining for W0X0F throughout this whole thread was none other than Frank Lapidus from Lost!

I think they kindof even look a bit alike come to think of it.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm sympathetic to this guy. I believe his story -- he thought it would be opened later and would provide a laugh. But that's the state of aviation today: zero tolerance and zero humor.