do you ever step up to the teebox...grab the b

Is this the point at which you lost your internet connection?

Was gonna post this. You have a knack for writing W0X0F.

I've wondered that myself. The same thing occurred with the Boeing 727 which exited passenger service in the U.S. about 8 years ago (a Delta flight from Greensboro, NC to -- where else? -- Atlanta) but continues to work as a cargo plane (as of Nov 30, 2009, FedEx still operated 77 of them).

Why does it make good business sense to fly these planes as cargo planes vs. passenger planes? Is it possible that the regulatory and maintenance costs are lower when used only for cargo? I don't know, but that's all I can think of. These decisions are all driven by bucks.

Am I having a senior moment? I don't recall there being a false roof on the plane. I'm trying to picture it now. In smaller planes the curvature of the fuselage is apparent in the overhead. If there is any kind of false roof on the larger planes, there's not a lot of space up there (certainly not like the space beneath the cabin floor). The only thing that would be up there is ducting for the conditioned air and perhaps some wires for the passenger service units.

On a (nearly) related note, I remember going on a C-5 at Dover AFB when my brother flew those planes. At the back of the plane is a passenger compartment located on a level above the cavernous cargo compartment (and btw, the 24 or so seats there are rear facing). At the aft bulkhead of this area is a circular door maybe 2-3 feet in diameter (iirc) that opens on to an area of dead space in the tail cone. The volume of that dead space exceeds that of the usable cargo volume of a C-130 Hercules.

Nice pics. Looks beautiful.

bahhh...

i was gonna say:

do you ever step up to the first tee with the big dog and say, "links tower, woxof prov1 heavy, with golf...ready for takeoff, fairway 1." ???

WOXOF,
Any hours I put in here in New Zealand will count towards my PPL in the states, right? I just need to enter everything in a log book?

Here is what it looks like when used as a crew area on B-777-300ER:



Another version:



And here is the picture of where it is located in the fuselage:




I just never thought there was so much space up there! I am also surprised that they haven't tried to use those beds to generate revenue (probably some regulation against it...).

The thing I've read that makes the most sense is that there's a combination of factors:
1) Some 3-engined jets (like the DC-10 and L-1011) were originally used for trans-Atlantic service because ETOPS didn't exist at the time.
2) The 727 was Boeing's first plane after the 4-engine 707, so they wanted to produce a short-haul variant that only had 3 engines.

The same thing did them both in for the airlines, I think: with razor thin margins, airlines wanted to save on fuel costs, and new twin-engined jets replaced the three-engined jets in all their roles (the 737 and DC-9 over the 727, the 757/767/777 over the DC-10/MD-11 and L-1011) as they became more common. For instance, look at the quick death of the MD-11 in passenger service: it was introduced in 1990, and 6 years later airlines started selling the planes to cargo operators.

I believe that cargo operators have much higher margins than the airlines, and so they acquired 3-engine planes for a song as the airlines dumped and can absorb the increased fuel cost.

It is basically a supply and demand problem. Once the commercial carriers stopped using them for passenger flights, there was an excess supply and the price of the actual aircraft dropped dramatically. With cargo carriers being the only bidders, they could pick the aircraft for a much lower cost now that so many were available and there were no commercial carriers bidding the price up through leasing companies. You will still find DC-10 in the fleets of charter operators, who have a similar need to get low cost airframes. Omni Air and World Airlines fly 12 of them still. Only FedEx has more, because they bought United and American's fleets at a time when the legacy carriers really needed the cash.

The same thing is happening with 757s as FedEx picks them up and phases out its 727 fleet. They expect to save 47% on fuel costs with the 757s.

I tried wading through FAR Part 61 to find the answer but I still wasn't completely sure so I called the local FSDO (Flight Standards Disctrict Office) at Dulles airport and talked to an FAA Inspector. Here's what I got from that conversation.

Definitely log the flight instruction and also have the instructor include his signature and certificate number in the Remarks section for each flight. If the instructor holds an FAA CFI certificate then it is completely acceptable. If his instructor certificate is issued by another country, then there are some considerations.

Basically, the regs have provisions for getting a U.S. certificate based on a foreign pilot license. But you are in training and the regs for a U.S. PPL specify some minimum flight hours and minimum hours of instruction. This instruction must be given by an "appropriately rated" instructor, i.e. he must hold an FAA-issued CFI.

So what good does it do to log the time in NZ? It still counts as part of your Total Time and it will give your U.S. CFI an indication of where you are in your training. If you've only had a few hours of training in NZ it really isn't that much of a consideration because almost no one takes the PPL flight test with the absolute minimum instruction specified by the regs.

Now, if you were at the point of being ready for your flight test over there it would be a real pity because you'd still need to come here and find a CFI and get the 20 hours of FAR-required instruction from him. If that were the case, my advice would be to get the license in NZ and then apply for a U.S. license based on the reciprocity.

There's nowhere near that kind of space on the 767. I know that the long range 777s were specifically designed to allow for crew rest areas but I've never seen them myself.

Thanks for the pics.

I forgot about that. You're right and that was the reason they existed in the first place.


I agree and this is kind of what I was saying: it all comes down to $$$. If you can get these planes cheap enough, you can accept 10% higher fuel usage for some period of time (maybe years) and still turn a profit.

Interesting...thanks. I learn a lot from you guys.

Starting next week, Lufthansa pilots in Germany are going on strike. Basically, they are fighting against Lufthansa transferring flights to lower-paying (foreign) subsidiaries. This means Lufthansa stops to offer a certain route, but a Lufthansa subsidiary like Austrian Airlines takes over; the jobs at Lufthansa can be cut.

To reach their goal, the pilots are willing to waive pay raises. German pilots are well organized (as far as I know) in the "Cockpit" union, and they won the last big conflict with Lufthansa after a strike in 2001. I think their chances are pretty good, though Lufthansa doesn't even want to negotiate about the pilots' demands at the moment.

Considering this, I have two questions:
1. Are you in a union? How well are American pilots organized? Are there industry-wide wage agreements or only on company levels?
2. I think this might already have been answered in this thread, but what is your opinion on airlines transferring routes to their own regional airlines and subsidiaries? Is it mainly necessary to compete with other low-cost carriers, or is it just shameless cost-cutting at the expense of the own pilots?

No probs, I appreciated the response anyway and the thread continues to be excellent!

No question for me this time. Just came across this while at work and thought I'd share. A bit of cross-indusry humor. As an Software Engineer, Dilbert is on my required reading list.

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-02-10/


-TK

I saw this too...love the "koi pond" remark. Dilbert is the only comic I read and I never miss it.

W0X0F,
Thanks!

I asked this when the semi naked woman picture arose (talk about bad timing) Sorry, i didn't see your reply.

Delta pilots, along with many commercial airline pilots are represented by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which is an AFL-CIO union and the largest pilot union. Historically, most airline pilots had their own independent unions and this is still true for many airlines (US Airways, American, Southwest and UPS come to mind immediately). Few commercial airlines have non-union pilots in the US. The only ones I can think of are Skywest and JetBlue. Agreements are company by company, although concessions sometimes follow one another.

As to how well they are organized, I'll leave that for W0X0F.

Yes, I did get momentarily distracted.

I'm falling down on the job. Just back from a nice dinner with friends and it's getting too late for this right now. I'll get a complete answer to you tomorrow along with a response to Ajezz's question about unions.

BTW, I loved Abagnale's book and the movie. And there have been guys (non-pilots) who have scammed a jumpseat.

FYP: There is never bad timing when pictures of semi naked women occurr.

ALPA represents pilots from over 30 airlines. No comment on how well they are organized.

There are no industry-wide wage agreements...each pilot group has its own contract (or working agreement) with management.

Well, it's affected my life in a negative way, so I'm not a great fan.

When you say "their own regional airlines", realize that in most cases this is just a business arrangement...the regional is a separate company that flies under contract to the larger carrier. (The only current exception that I'm aware of is ComAir, which is owned by Delta.) Mesa, for example, flew simultaneously as a connection carrier for United, USAirways and Delta (I'm not sure of the current status of these arrangements).

Probably a little of both. It certainly gives management an extra tool in their bag for bludgeoning their pilots at contract negotiation time.

It's been a while since I read the book and saw the movie, but he was before my time. I know of some jumpseat scammers in the 90s and I told a story itt of a mechanic who tried to talk his way onto my jumpseat once.

It's certainly believable to me that he did this. You can do almost anything in this world if you look serious and carry a clipboard (or in his case a uniform and valid looking ID). It would be very hard to pull this off today since every jumpseater is now checked against an on-line database at the gate.

I'm not sure what you mean by sitting there "doing nothing"? Are you talking about what he would do during the ride, sitting in the jumpseat? If so, then yeah, pretty much you're just along for the ride.

The Concorde has got to be in anyone's "Aircraft Hall of Fame". It was ground breaking in the commercial world. Being limited to sub-sonic speeds over U.S. airspace kind of hamstrung the plane.

As to being one of the safest planes out there, this sounds like a subjective opinion that may not be supported by the stats. (See Past Accident History) I would have loved to fly it and I could understand how it might be hard to go back to sub-sonic speeds after flying it (athough I would gladly fly a C-152 if you pay me enough).

I don't think we'll see another supersonic passenger plane any time soon. Oil isn't getting cheaper and it takes a lot of energy to push that plane to those speeds.