I think you're being out of line here, especially since W0X0F has been answering questions for 5 months now.

Anyway, has the Runway 13R/31L construction at JFK been giving you any headaches? (I humbly ask you to answer this question with utmost urgency and haste. )

I think you need to take a chill pill. I simply asked a question. Get a grip. WTF has a runway at JFK got to do with anything? Parking lot C at LGB however, is closed while they build a new parking garage though. lol Did I answer quickly enough for you? Sheesh.

I meant the question about the JFK runway as a question for woxof. Sorry for the confusion. Edit: Plus I was trying to make a joke in the parenthetical. I thought it would be ironic to ask for a hasty reply after typing the first paragraph.

I try to answer the questions as they come in, but on occasion I'll let one slip through the cracks (I mean to get to it later, and then forget). If there's something I missed, let me know and I'll try to get a response out.

I had a 3 day trip to Milan (Friday-Sunday) and the cost of internet in the room is prohibitive there (18 Euro for 24 hours), so I just go back to living the way I did in the days before internet: go for a walk, read a book, but no chance to look at this forum on that trip.

I picked up an extra trip and I'm now in Venice. We arrived this morning and have a 48 hour layover, leaving Thursday for the return to JFK. The hotel gives us 12 hours of free internet (cumulative time) so I'm able to check in on the thread here.

We actually stay in a little town called Mestre and it's a short bus ride (1 Euro) into Venice. Tomorrow I'm going to spend all day walking around Venice. It's a beautiful city and the weather is supposed to be nice.

So far it hasn't been too bad. I've had only three flights since they started the construction and the first two went without any delays. On my current trip, when we contacted ramp tower for pushback, we were told that our ett (expected taxi time) was in one hour. This meant we had to pushback and then contact ground control for "taxi to metering", which is the term they are using during this construction to let ground know we need to go somewhere and sit until our ett. Somehow we got 25 minutes shaved off of the ett (our operations people called us on the #2 radio to let us know) and were able to takeoff just about one hour after pushback.

Flight time to Venice was 7:35 and when we got here we had to hold a while because of weather (almost had to divert to Pisa due to fuel) and then we did an autoland because of the low ceiling. We ended up seeing the runway at about 50'. I think this may be my first time sitting through an autoland in the 767 due to the weather; I've done it before in good weather just to keep the plane certified for it.

50'? Why isn't that a missed approach situation?

Autoland can be done in zero visibility I believe

why are wings swept back?

CAT III ILS Approach

ILS is such an awesome thing.

One more..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPQhyLdWajk&NR=1

That was a cool link.
Thanks

It's strictly a function of your desire and financial means.

I got my license in 4 months from 1st lesson to check ride and I thought that was pretty fast. But I later met a guy who did it in 3 weeks, which is really incredible and I've never known anyone else who came close to that. This guy was very smart (PhD EE) and very Type A.


I'm not the best person to answer this, as I'm not really in touch with the current hiring practices at the regionals. In the early 90's, even the regionals wouldn't look at you unless you had 2,000 hours (and that was low); now, they are taking pilots with under 1,000 hours and sometimes much less than this (e.g. pilots who graduate from Embry-Riddle and interned at the airline).

My guess is that unless you come from one of the 'name' flight schools (Comair, Embry-Riddle), any regional airline will want some good flight experience, such as flying night cargo or overnight checks (if they still even do that in the internet age).

You'd have no trouble getting the license and you'd ultimately get hired somewhere, but it really is a crapshoot on when and where. My guess is that to go from zero time to hired at a regional would probably take 2-4 years. But that's just a guess.

I'm not an aerodynamic engineer, so I'm not going to go into too much depth here (there's plenty on the web you can read about this, for example...), but basically the swept wing allows higher speeds.

The airflow over a wing is accelerated and as it approaches the trans-sonic regime there are some big adverse effects such as the formation of shock waves (high drag) and mach tuck (the tendency for the plane to nose over). The swept wing delays these effects, allowing higher cruise speeds.

One good example of this is the Dornier 328 jet, which was based on the Dornier 328 turboprop.


TURBOPROP VERSION






JET VERSION



The turboprop was a great plane: fast, modern and very comfortable in the cabin. But the flying public hates props and so they replaced the props with jet engines. The jet version had outstanding climb performance, but with the straight wing it was very limited in cruise speed. It climbed, cruised and descended at about .65 mach. Because of this, the pilots on the Dornier jet would often find that ATC would keep them down low (in the high 20's) so they wouldn't impede normal jet traffic.

That's true, but we must have at least 600' RVR to initiate the CAT III approach. RVR = Runway Visual Range and is a measure of horizontal visibility at the runway. Not all airports have RVR measuring equipment but the major airports all have them. They might have one, two or three sensors (Touchdown Zone RVR, Mid-point RVR and Roll-out RVR).

In the U.S. it is only visibility that determines whether or not we may initiate the approach. Thus, for a Category One ILS (CAT I), we typically need 1/2 mile or 1,800 RVR (RVR is controlling, if available). The Decision Height (DH) is usually 200 feet, so that's the point at which we must see the runway (or the approach lights) in order to land. But even if they're reporting a ceiling of 100', we can still shoot the approach as long as the required visibility is being reported. In other words, we can "take a look". It may turn out that, even though they are calling it 100' ceiling, when we get down to 200' we are able to see the approach lights. This allows us to continue down to 100' above TDZE (Touchdown Zone Elevation) at which point we must see the runway to land.

All of the above is for CAT I. For CAT II or III, we generally do an autoland and we have no requirement to see anything to land. But the RVR is still controlling for allowing us to initiate the approach.

thanks very much for that. i know a google search or two would get me to the answer, so I appreciate your patience.

btw, last saturday I had my 3rd lesson, this time with a new instructor who has 1500 hours which I guess makes him a newish pilot. he's very different from the first guy, he's very very detail oriented and information heavy which makes it more challenging but also means there's more than I can learn each lesson.

this lesson was redo from the first two lessons, but made me feel like a complete beginner (which I am ldo). more comfortable on the radios now, but still working on turn coordination, traffic patterns and everything else. "my taxi is great" the instructor says though! going up again this weekend and bought a few things i need like a logbook, bag, fuel sampler, and checklists.

still waiting for the big sunday million score so i can go about this properly.

Incredible thread. I can't believe how I've neglected my life to read it. Thanks, W0X, for taking the time!

I'm a Delta 4 million miler, so you've no doubt driven me around a time or two. I know how we all have our "favorite" airline-isms. Mine is being admonished by the FAs that we can't push back until everyone has their seat belt fastened. Generally we've pushed back before the safety presentation or Deltalina has made her pitch and we've been told how to fasten our seat belt. Kind of has the cart before the horse. Besides, that's something I think we all know how to do these days.

Speaking of Deltalina, do you know her?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgpzUo_kbFY
I love it when she tells me there's no smoking on any Delta flight.

Enjoy Venice. It's one of my favorite spots on earth.

Funny, but I never noticed this before. You're right...if we're going to pretend that people need instruction on the operation of the seatbelt, then we should really give that instruction before requiring them to be fastened.

I don't know her, but many of the FAs I fly with know her and say very nice things about her. She is certainly memorable and a good choice for the safety video. People (especially men) tend to watch it from beginning to end.

Here's me enjoying a glass of wine (2 days ago) at an outdoor cafe on the Grand Canal. It's right next to the Ponte Academia for anyone who knows Venice. I'm laughing here because a couple of women at a table to my left were busting my balls about posing for the picture.

i dont know if this has been asked yet, but whats the deal with lasers being shined in the pilot's cockpits? does it really "light up" the whole cockpit? does the glass act as a light spreader and make the whole area shine?

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

I'm on the ATL to TGU flight on Monday morning and will be riding in on this approach. Hopefully it will be nothing like that. Wish me luck, I hope your Delta colleague is on his game.

I know very little about this, other than it's illegal to shine lasers at a plane. I always assumed that the danger was in the laser randomly shining in the pilots' eyes and causing temporary blindness. It never occurred to me that it might actually "light up" the entire cockpit or cause an effect like a flashbulb going off.

But I found this interesting item on the web that talks a little about it. I've never had any first-hand experience with this issue.

The video's always look scarier than actually flying the approach. If it's any comfort, the pilots are always a little extra vigilant when going into one of these "special use" airports (as we call them). They will brief the approach in detail way before descent and they will not hesitate to go around if anything looks amiss.

As an interesting aside, our special information pages for this airport caution the pilots to use the full name of the airport in all PA's rather than refer to it as "Ta-Goose", as pilots sometimes do among themselves. Apparently, locals might take offense.

Which reminds me of a related item from years ago. We had a pilot at ACA make a PA on the descent into New Haven, Connecticut and referred to the city as "Crime Haven." The city council supervisor was on board that flight and was not amused. He wrote a letter to United which resulted in a caution to all of us about using such cute nicknames.

The problem with Delta and Italy is Alitalia. Atlanta is crowded and there is weather. Happily the pilots are skilled and atc is trained etc, unlike the rude fat ****s in customer service. However, in Italy itself, with Alitatlia people, know in advance that there are no more incompetant, ignorant, and dangerously stupid people on earth than Alitalia employees.

that was a pretty good read, thank you

We recently had a Delta FA comment that anyone who doesn't yet know how to operate a seat belt should be "weeded out" of the population. (Technically, she was probably a Pinnacle FA.)

Just flew back business from Tokyo. Nice that Delta seems to have upgraded the blankets, pillows, and headsets over previous NW flights.

That's a slippery slope. First we get rid of those who can't operate a seat belt, and it's not long before we're eliminating those who can't put their seat and tray table in the "full upright and locked position."

Yeah, the Business Class blankets and pillows have really been upgraded.

Wow. It's taken me about two months to get to the end of this, times I thought I never would. But, it's because it's is the best thread I've ever run across on the Intertubes. Kind of a rabbit hole, but I mean that in a good way.

Never been afraid to fly but I'm even less so now. Not sure that I'll ever take up flying but if this doesn't get me going in that direction nothing will.

I do have a question that I've been sitting on for over a month, waiting to get to the end of the thread to ask. In February we were in Hawaii, flew direct from Seattle. When we flew the plane was completely boarded before it was time to start boarding (minus my wife and I and two other passengers.) First time I've ever heard my name announced in the terminal. The explanation from the cabin crew was that it was a head wind issue and they were trying to get into the air to beat it. They explained that they will occasionally have to fly to Oakland, top off with fuel and then head to Hawaii turning a five hour flight into a nine hour affair. The plane was a 737-700 I think and I suppose it makes sense.

But, the situation I'm really wondering about has to do with our travel partners who arrived on a direct flight from Portland, OR to Hawaii. They apparently had similar headwinds, but were further delayed because they had to be towed to the terminal from the runway upon landing, supposedly because they ran out of fuel. Common sense and what I've read here has me questioning if any airline or flight crew would cut it that close, but that was the word they received and so I have to ask. Possible?

Anyway, thanks again for a great read.