Excellent!

This one's my favourite:

"There's a story about the military pilot calling for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a little peaked."

Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two, behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down.

"Ah," the fighter pilot remarked, "The dreaded seven-engine approach.""

cute aviation humor...from another site where w0x saved the day by finding the link everyone was looking for:

http://www.avweb.com/other/shfinal.html

What are the outer markers and how does one hold at them? I assume they are beacons of some sort but how do you know where they are?

I've seen lots of these types of ATC exchanges, but this is by far the best collection I've ever seen. I can relate to this one. I was coming into JFK this past Monday and we kept getting vectored so that vairious JetBlue flights could get in:

You'd do just as well asking these questions of a random guy you find at the poker table. I haven't heard of any plans to replace the current turbofan technology and I don't know if that's because R&D costs are so high or the operating costs would be prohibitive.

I don't have any favorites. I used to fly American a lot in the 80s, going back and forth to Hawaii but it was the frequent flyer program that kept me loyal (certainly wasn't any over-the-top service). Whoever originated that concept was a genius.

I've had very positive experiences the few times I've been on JetBlue and USAirways has always been great to jumpseaters (one time even had a Captain direct the ground crew to pull back to the gate to let me board!).

Not anymore. When first learning to fly it's pretty common to try to steer the plane on the ground using the control wheel rather than the rudder pedals. I actually have a bigger problem going from plane to car because I sometimes take my eyes off the road, letting my attention wander to something inside the car. This isn't a big deal in the air, but not a good idea in a car. My wife has admonished me several times, "You're not in the air now...pay attention!"

Are you talking about this (Airbus 319 intake)?



We don't look for anything specific with that painted spiral and I've never even heard it discussed (and it's not universally present). I have always assumed it's there just to make it obvious that the fan is turning. If the fan blade assembly was out of balance, it would be obvious in very dramatic ways and no wobbling spiral would be needed to indicate this.

Yup, one of those. I usually see a white one like this...



I guess it probably is a safety thing for people on the ground.

In GA planes, ground steering is done using the rudder pedals. In some planes (e.g. Piper), the pedals have a direct linkage to the nosewheel. In others (Cessna, Grumman) the rudder pedal simply moves the rudder itself and it's the slipstream against the rudder which provides directional control.

If large aircraft, the plane is steered using a tiller (shown on the left side console in this picture):



There is usually a tiller only on the Captain's side, but it can be on both sides as an option I believe. I think we have it on both sides in the 777. The tiller is usually able to turn the nosewheel up to 70 degrees* either direction. Using rudder pedals alone, the nosewheel can be turned about 7 degrees* (plenty of steering authority to maintain a straight taxi), so sometimes the Captain might have the FO steer on a straightaway if he needs to divert his attention for something.

[*these numbers may vary somewhat from one type to another.]

Manual braking is done by pushing on the top of the rudder pedals. This actuates the brakes on the main landing gear, which can be operated independently of each other. Pressing on the bottom portion of the pedals simply moves the rudder.



There is some technique involved. On landing, you don't want to be applying brakes at touchdown, so your heels will be on the floor with your feet pushing only on the bottom of the pedals. To apply brakes after landing, you raise your feet up to the top portion of the pedals and press forward. Since the main gear brakes are independent, it is possible to brake assymetrically (and there might be times that you actually want to do this) so it is an acquired feel.

Find a good flight school and instructor. I've given advice earlier itt on how to do this, but basically you need to ask around (maybe call your local FSDO for a recommendation). Unfortunately it can be a hit-or-miss thing. If you get someone who's not really into teaching (i.e. just wants to build time), it could be a negative experience.

Getting your license can happen as quickly as you have time to allow for it. I think I got my ticket quicker than most (first lesson in February, license in June), but I know one guy who got his license in 3 weeks from zero time. He was very Type A, a PhD in EE who always went after things with incredible focus.

FAR Part 61 specifies the requirements for the various licenses and ratings. For the Private Pilot License, see FAR 61.109 which gives the breakdown of the hours required to get the license.

It might have changed somewhat from when I got it, but the minimum time was 40 hours, including at least 20 hours of dual instruction and at least 10 hours of solo flight. The other requirements you can read for yourself; there's too many to list here.

Getting the Instrument Rating (an add-on to your PPL) used to require a minimum of 200 hours of flight time, but here's the current requirements from FAR 61.65, and I don't see a minimum flight time requirement anymore:

Once you get a license, you can get training for a jet, but that will require a separate check ride for each aircraft type and you will get the Type Rating added to your license.

Your basic Private Pilot License will simply say "Airplane - Single Engine Land", meaning you can now legally fly any single engine land-based airplane that doesn't require a Type Rating (aircraft more than 12,500 lbs and/or jet powered). But just because you're legal doesn't mean someone will rent you the plane. If you trained in Pipers and now want to fly a Bonanza, your local flying club will insist on some further dual instruction in this type of airplane to satisfy their insurance company.

If fact, even if you go buy your own Bonanza, your insurer will probably insist that you get some number of hours (5-10 probably) of instruction in that type before flying solo. If you're independently wealthy you can tell the insurance company to go pound sand and simply go fly that new plane.

And after the Instrument Rating, then what?

Well, there's the Commerical License, if you want to fly for hire; the Instructor license (CFI); Instrument Instructor (CFII); Multi-engine rating; Multi-engine Instructor (MEI); Airline Transport Pilot license (ATP).

And then you can think about other categories, e.g. rotorcraft, light-than-air.

I think this must be it.

Marker beacons are low powered signals placed on the localizer of an ILS. The antenna on these beacons are highly directional and pointed straight up so they will only be received for a couple of seconds while the airplane is transiting overhead.

Many approaches have only an outer marker, but some have 3 marker beacons: outer, middle and inner. As you pass over them they each have a characteristic sound.

The Outer Marker (OM) has long, low pitched "dashes" and an accompanying blue indicator light will flash as you transit overhead.

The Middle marker (MM) has a higher pitched tone, alternating long-short, with an associated Amber light flashing.

The Inner marker (IM, usually about 0.1 nm from the runway) will have a high pitched beeping sound and a white light flashing rapidly. Quite often, we don't turn the audio on for the markers, relying on the flashing lights alone to signal their passing.

But that's not why you called...

You wanted to know how we hold at a marker. If the marker wasn't on the localizer, we would have no way to hold at a marker by itself...it provides no course guidance or homing capability. But since we know when we pass over the marker, we can fly a racetrack pattern, re-intercept the localizer and repeat this every time we pass the marker.

To make life easier, they often co-locate an NDB (non-directional beacon) with the OM and when this is the case they refer to it as a Locator/Outer Marker or LOM.

Here's one at Wichita:



The LOM has a frequency of 332 and we can check the audible ident (IC in morse code) to be sure we've tuned it correctly. Now, our ADF (Automatic Direction Finder) will point to the LOM and we can actually track to the LOM and fly a holding pattern over it even if the localizer is not operating.

Of course, in actual practice today, we'd simply enter the LOM into our FMS and then select the appropriate holding pattern. The FMS would then provide input to our Flight Director which would guide us (or the autopilot) through the holding pattern.

GPS is rendering a lot of the old NavAids (and ways of doing things) obsolete. Too bad in some ways. Being able to hold on a specific bearing to an NDB was a rite of passage in instrument flying.

This may be obvious, but you do have to make steering adjustments on the runway just before liftoff right? I.e. you don't just center the wheel and lock it and thrust forward all the way to liftoff. I imagine wind or other forces could make you go slightly off course.

You're right. Some rudder pressure must be maintained throughout the takeoff roll and this can be due to crosswinds or the fact that the engines don't produce exactly the same thrust on takeoff. It's not much...kind of like a car with tires not in perfect alignment. You have to make small corrections.

Imagine the air all around the airplane just before takeoff was like a very thick fog (ie, visibility of a few feet). Ignoring the safety issues, what would the movement pattern of the air around the engine look like? How far ahead of the jet would air be moving and what would the diameter of moving air look like?

I've searched for a model of this sort of thing but I haven't been able to find one. I guess I've always thought it would look really cool to watch a plane take off in this sort of fog from like 200' feet up (assuming the fog's height ended just around the height of the airplane, thereby enabling visibility of the fog moving into and passing through the engines).

Find a shady spot and get a cool drink...I think you've been out in that tropical sun too long. I have no idea what this would look like.

The effect of the jet engine is going to vary with the size of the engine and the thrust setting being used. I found this discussion on the internetz which sounds close to what you're looking for. It might be of interest to you.

So at takeoff, but while still on the ground, you use the rudder and not the front wheel to make the adjustments? Interesting.

I've lived here for like 10 months and spent at most like 5 days on the beach. Not a beach person. Anywho, I sucked at asking this question.

I guess I was talking about something like a typical 738 taking off on a normal day at sea level.

Very true. The steering tiller is not used during takeoff. It's too sensitive at anything above taxi speeds...and of course if it's the FOs takeoff there is no tiller on his side (in most planes).

any sort of a lifetime odometer on commercial planes?

I'm guessing they do it by hour (like boats). And I'm sure each key part is tracked individually (fuselage, each engine, etc) and given an expected lifespan.

But I'm not the expert so I'll wait for him to chime in.

Why would the engine pulse flames like this after a bird strike?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jN0bqL9cM0

are bird strikes more serious on jets with engines on the body rather than the wing?

Do you know an ex air force Delta Pilot named Jeff "Odie" Espenship? He spoke about safety at a dinner my company had last night at the Museum of Flight here in Seattle. Many of his safety topics mirrored yours about checks and rechecks, avoiding complacency and following safety rules to the letter. It made me think of this thread and i curious if you knew him personally or knew of him.

Is it possible to retract the landing gear (intentionally/accidentally, not a failure) while the plane is on the ground? If not, what prevents this? Physics?

I saw the documentary last night on Sully's Hudson River landing on the Discovery channel and it mentioned that the plane needed to land at exactly 11 degrees nose up in order to avoid breaking apart. It went on to show simulated models of how the plane would rip apart if it touched down any steeper or more shallow. You mentioned earlier that on the Airbus you can pull full back and it will automatically keep you in an attitude just on the edge of stalling. Is there a way to set the attitude to 11 degrees and make the landing easy? It also mentioned that Sully knew to set the plane to this exact attitude, but I was a bit skeptical. Is that a number any pilot would know? Is the optimum ditching angle listed in any of your publications? Or is it something he knew as in "I know if I'm too steep or shallow I will die, but this angle here looks about right." If so I think that's even more impressive with the systems the Airbus has in place, to know that you can easily slow the aircraft as much as possible before impact, but choosing instead to maintain an attitude that you think will be more survivable.

No, there's not. GA airplanes often have a Hobbs meter, which records total time to the tenth of an hour. In most planes the Hobbs meter is wired to turn on when the oil pressure is above a certain amount (indicating a running engine).

In our plane we have a Hobbs meter for the APU, but the airframe and engines themselves have no such meter that I'm aware of. However, the company closely tracks the flight time and number of cycles (takeoffs and landings) on each plane.

In flight, engine reports are automatically sent to the company via the ACARS so they can accumulate data for engine trend analysis and determine if some unscheduled maintenance might be necessary. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a report sent every time an engine starts or stops, but I don't know. I'm pretty sure they're not just making a SWAG on it though -- those engines are expensive and it's in their interest to monitor them closely.

A regional jet engine is somewhere in the $2M range and the 777 engine is going to be in the $10M range. (How do they make any money?)