That's interesting. I also once had the Head of State (President?) of a little country called Andorra on my plane. I guess it's technically a Principality, whatever that is.

What the hell happened in the flight that went down in Russia, where the plane circled 4 times before coming in for the landing? The fog was THAT bad? (Referring to the plane that crashed a few hours ago where everyone died, the Polish president and all his ministers and army officials on the flight)

Speculation about aviation advances has always been an interesting parlor game: flying cars, personal jet packs, a helicopter in every garage. I've heard rumors of remotely piloted passenger planes, perhaps with one pilot on board to sit up front just for the takeoff and landing (and for any critical situations en route). If that ever happens, I think it's at least 50-100 years out.

As for the lack of advance in aircraft speed, that's just because of the sound barrier, which still represents a "wall" of sorts. It takes a lot of power (fuel) to reach and sustain speeds close to or greater than Mach 1. The Concorde was a remarkable plane but it was not economically viable.

Reports are that ground control "suggested" the pilot divert to another airport due to the conditions. Aren't they able to insist on this as long as there is no emergency fuel situation?

4th flight lesson this morning. wow it was very windy gusting to 30knots.

can you explain a dutch roll?

I'm not sure if other countries differ, but here in the U.S. that decision rests solely with the pilot. Short of closing the airport, the ground controllers have no say about whether or not a pilot initiates an approach.

For airlines in the U.S., which operate under the rules of FAR Part 121, we are not allowed to initiate an approach if we don't have the minimum visibility shown on the approach plate for the specific approach. If operating under Part 91 (this governs private or corporate flying), there is no such restriction and the pilot can "take a look" at his discretion. There is still a requirement to see the runway or the runway environment (e.g. approach lights) when reaching the minimum altitude for the approach in order to land.

Did this term come up in your lesson today? Tell me what you know about it and I'll give you my perspective. (I don't have time right now as I'm leaving for Bogota, Columbia in just a little while; I'll get back to you when I return.)

*Colombia

I believe a dutch roll is when you fart in the cockpit and then roll the airplane so the co-pilot can't get up from their seat to get away. Similar to the dutch oven concept.

my instructor showed me a dutch roll and explained it somewhat to me.

basically, i know that it's a maneuver where you are rolling the plane while keeping the nose pointed at a fixed heading. and i think you go about doing that by banking right + right rudder followed by banking left + left rudder. and you do it so you get a feel for the airplane and how to fly it with "coordinated controls."

i don't understand why the nose stays at a fixed point. i thought that when you bank right with right rudder you would turn right and the nose would also come to the right, and vice versa. so the nose would be sort of wandering back and forth.

my foundation of aerodynamics knowledge is admittedly highly limited.

Good to know. It's still unclear why the pilot was so determined to land here (no ILS, 4 attempts because of lack of visibility), but I'm guessing that part of the story will come out soon.

Thanks for the reply, and thanks again for this thread.

Just started reading this post. +1 Loving it.

I like the part of density altitude. It's something I must have slept through in college. I found out about it the hard way flying a 152 from Fort Worth to Colorado Springs several years ago. The plane was just about at max with all sort of camping gear in the back. When I got about a hundred miles from the airport I found myself at full throttle at 1500 AGL with a nose high pitch with a speed of 70 knots. Couldnt climb at all. Funny thing is that in the summer Colorado has afternoon thunderstorms. It was extremly fun. When I took off at Colorado Springs it was noon at 93 degrees. Took every bit of the runway and thirty minutes to climb to 1000 AGL. I learned alot from that flight. I will never take a 152 to Colorado again. The 172 I took the next year performed a whole lot better.

The question I have is this. About 12 years ago I was flying a 172 into a 2000' airport next to a lake. I was attempting to do some touch and go's when something very strange happened to me. While I was in the pattern I became very confused. I would look at the ASI but couldnt comprehend at what speed I was at. I landed very fast and long ( about 200' from the end of the runway) I cracked a wheel pant and blew one of the main tires. I called to the flight school and the owner flew down and replaced the tire and flew me back to the airport. At this time my face and hand went numb and I had to empty my flight bag to get sick into. When we landed the owner and some other instructors carried me inside and called the ambulance. After 8 hrs in the ER I was told it was an acute severe migraine headache. The school owner notified the FAA which in one week I received a letter saying that my medical was suspended. I went to a Neurologist and was was given some medicine to take if I were to have a migraine again. About three months later the FAA released my medical and I was told not to fly if I have to take the medicine. I have never taken the medicine and never had a migraine since.

So with this on my record, what would be the chance that I could land a job with an air carrier? Do I have a shot or should I just give up on it? Would the other applicants that never have had a problem with their medical be taken in first? Any thoughts on this would be great.

What are your thoughts on this scenario? Does it represent a security risk to the plane?

awesome thread, I'm going to block off 2 weeks to read it all someday

My Q's def not more important than anyone else's, but just thought I'd bump this, since I'm really interested in your reply to the underlined one (if you already answered earlier in the thread, apologies, but I searched and couldn't find anything...)

I started on the thread when it was at about 60 pages. I scrolled through and only read WOXOFs answers to questions, he is good to quote them with his reply. Reading everyones posts would have been very hard

WOXOF- someone was asking about noises on an MD8X earlier, but I have another question. I fly (ride) them alot out of ATL, what is the sucking-swooshing noise that is made just a few moments after takeoff? Does it have to do with pressurizing the cabin? I dont notice it on 7X7, Canadair, etc

surfing around and reading Kent Wien's blog, came across this page where he answers someone's question about surviving explosive depressurization. in answering the question, he posts this absolutely chilling audio clip of cargo plane Kalitta #66 whose pilots were suffering from hypoxia. about halfway down the page.

http://www.gadling.com/2010/04/12/pl...zat/#continued

http://www.fss.aero/accident-reports...report_key=975

is there any training for pilots to recognize hypoxia?

To Everyone:

I apologize for falling a little behind on replies to posts and I will get to all of them soon. I was flying this past weekend and then took two days for a golf trip to Williamsburg and Richmond with a friend...just got home. Now I've got to get my taxes done, so I'll try to get back on this thread on Thursday or Friday.

I leave on a 7 day trip to Amsterdam Sunday (JFK-AMS-PDX-AMS-JFK; about 41 hours of flying) and I hope they have internet at the hotels.

hehe great news. read this thread a while ago and just finished reading the new stuff. great job OP, def best thread on 2p2 for me.
also, enjoy amsterdam. just came back from a 3day trip.was blessed to have good weather too, esp during the flights

They use a lot of fuel, no doubt about that. It bothers me in the sense that most flying is non-essential. We fly to places because we can, not because we have to. The airlines realize this and the pricing reflects it; airline travel is an attractive use of discretionary income.

We might use somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 lbs of jet fuel to fly from Europe to the U.S. (That's obviously a round number, but it's the right order of magnitude and probably within 20% for most European cities.) This is about 15,000 gallons of fuel.

What would it take for you to drive your car from here to Paris, assuming there was a bridge you could use? Let's assume the road would be straight line...that would be 3,630 miles. Let's say you get 30 mpg -- you would use 121 gallons of gas. But that plane carries 200 people. If they all drove their own car, that would be 24,200 gallons. Time to carpool! Four to a car and you reduce this ~6,000 gallons...about half what the airplane used to move these people. Of course, on the plane they get there in 7 hours; in the car the tolls alone on our hypothetical bridge would slow them down immensely. It would take at least 3 days.

Anyway, the point of the above is to show that it's not using the fuel of "hundreds of thousands of cars on the highway." In fact, it compares pretty well when you look at the gallons/passenger-mile, and then you have to factor in the time savings (and "time is money", as they say).

This topic has many facets, but pilots don't really "fiercely resist" anything. They may bitch about it and have strong opinions but when push comes to shove, pilots (as a group) tend to take whatever is foisted on them. I remember being very envious of New York's transit workers a few years ago when they actually shut down the city for 3 days on a strike. You'd never see that with pilots or our union (for one thing, there's the National Railway Labor Act which makes any job action very difficult for pilot groups).

As to the rationale for being against it, consider how you'd like to have everything you say and do at work recorded for possible review. I know, I know...safety! Motherhood. Apple pie. I get that. But the move to big brother is also a concern.

Do you see the routine use of recorders or cameras is hospital operating theaters? (and I mean for use in determining fault and/or cause in the case of a screw-up).

The Cockpit Voice Recorder and Flight Data Recorder (CVR and FDR) were originally intended to help solve the mysteries of aviation accidents. That's all good stuff; we've all benefited from finding the root cause of accidents. This leads to engineering changes as well as changes in procedures and policies. All designed to enhance safety.

But when these were introduced, there was a 'guarantee' of privacy, i.e. it wouldn't be used as grist for the news monster. But this happens all the time and that breach of the original 'agreement' is a sore spot with pilots. Thus, your idea of encrypting the video/audio and only using it when needed is great, but no pilot would trust that this would be the case.

(Remember as you read this, that I am expressing my own views and many other pilots might disagree.)

I like to laugh and I could pick from any of the following:

Bill Murray
Ricky Gervais
Michael Keaton
Jimmy Kimmel
Tom Hanks

I'm sure I could add to this list, but you get the idea. Of course, there's another way to go...maybe I should pick a poker pro and get some one-on-one coaching. Yeah, that wouldn't be bad. Just poker stories alone would be great.

Most of northern European airspace is closed to all flights for the foreseeable future !

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8621407.stm

When I was flying the small 19 and 29 seat turboprops in the 90s, I often thought that you could put me anywhere in the Northeast U.S. and I could find my way around. It was kind of our little backyard. I really think that's true.

But the scenario you describe would be much more difficult, unless we just happened to be around something very recognizable (e.g. Grand Canyon or the Rockies). There's a whole lot of land in the U.S. and much of it looks the same.

On the other hand, if I knew where I was over the U.S. it would be a pretty easy job to find New York (for example) without the use of navaids.

I never have but I just flew with a guy who had this occur recently, flying to Amsterdam. They ended up having to subdue and restrain the passenger. It was later determined that it was a 'medication' problem (and I don't really know what that means).

I once had a lady start to have an anxiety attack on my little Jetstream 32 (19 seater) out of JFK. After I closed the door (at the back of the plane) and then walked forward to the cockpit, she grabbed my arm and said she couldn't go. She was just too scared to fly on my little aerial deathtrap. I calmed her (I was more sympathetic than my previous sentence might lead you to believe) and assured her that she didn't have to go. I opened the door and she got off...not sure how she got to D.C.

cockpit with ricky gervais would be epic

It's funny you mention this, because I just heard about it from the Captain on my last flight. I was completely unaware of this.

I think it's a good move. Sure we'd all like happy, well-adjusted guys at the controls, but the reality is that pilots are people with the same problems as everyone else. I'd like anyone with depression issues to be addressing the problem rather than just trying to tough it out. Prior to this ruling there were probably guys out there medicating "on the sly" (though I'm not aware of any), so now they can come out of the closet.

Not in all respects, but they do seem pretty relaxed and even happy to be at work, which is not something you can say about every workplace.