The great big "ask an airline pilot" thread!

The fun part about corporate flying is finding yourself waking up in a hotel and having to get ready to fly to a destination that neither of you have ever flown to before, there is a sense of excitement as its new, we have done all the preparation that we can, right down to googling the local words for good evening and thank you..... And also checked out how to coordinate our entry with the local air force as they operate an air defence zone over the whole country. GoPro batteries are charged... this is gonna be fun.

Generally no as the recordings are not available for this part of the world, but we operated a roundtrip Geneva - Shannon - New York JFK - Paris last year so I did listen to the JFK ATC recordings of our arrival and departure. Its a good way to learn if we are doing something wrong and to learn from our mistakes.

This is quoted as the crew rules for the Abercrombie and Fitch G550....

* Pre-flight, workers are directed to mount a fingerprint hunt throughout the Gulfstream G550.

* In the rear lavatory, “washcloths are to be tri-folded,” while toilet paper is not to be exposed (nor should its “end square” be folded).

* A 13-title magazine assortment should be available in a credenza, with all inserts removed.

* Seat belts “should be folded neatly into the seat backing. The buckles should have a ten inch space between them and should be free of fingerprints or marks.

* "Clean shaven" male staffers should “spritz their uniforms with Abercrombie & Fitch 41 cologne” and adhere to a uniform that includes boxer briefs, flip flops, a polo shirt, and gloves. When wearing a winter coat (but only when the temperature is 50 or below), crew member must “Zip the jacket up to the fourth button from the bottom. The lowest button should be left undone, but the next three buttons up should be fastened.” Also, “Flip up the collar on the coat.”

* The jeans of crew members “should sit at the hips. The belt is flipped over at the buckle.” As for shirts, they “should be tucked in at the front between the front two belt loops and none of the buttons should be fastened.” That’s right, the male staffers--usually wannabe models and actors--do not need to worry about fussing with tricky shirt buttons.

* A steward must “Check the Cross pens and make sure that they will be writing properly. They should be changed once a month, or when the pen is not writing properly.”

Hope that my boss never reads that :):) Although in our usual environment, boxers and flip flops would be great.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/af-plane-rules?page=0

smurfjed

conor_ie wrote: »

Not sure if this has been asked before but here goes....

So Friday morning while I was listening to the Dublin Approach frequency... it was the usual comms between the arriving planes and atc then when American 290 came through, the pilot was asking about how good the golf courses were around Dublin. (I'm assuming he spotted Portmarnock on approach!) Have any of the pilots who post here any stories about different conversations they've had with atc's around the place??

A few months ago I saw a cargo aircraft make a right on to a main parallel taxiway when it should have made a left they were immediately informed of that by the ground controller but not before they were pretty much nose to nose with an A310 that was holding to allow them out...sadly neither had a reverse gear!

Jimmy444 wrote: »

Question for Airbus pilots: the video below shows the energetic actions of the pilot on the joystick as he comes in to land manually. I thought the way fly-by-wire works is that you put the aircraft in the attitude you require e.g 10 degree climb or bank 20 degrees, then let go the controls and the system recognises the current attitude as the situation you require and automatically corrects to maintain it until a further input is made. Do you think the pilot in this video is making the corrections for gusts, or is it to prevent diverging from the centreline due to varying crosswinds? I'm surprised he has to work so hard despite so much automation.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBuoA9qkKi4

Having the nose at 10 degrees and it staying there is grand when you want to climb but at lower speed when landing you need to make larger and more regular control inputs to keep the aircraft where you want it. Setting the aircraft up with a pitch/thrust setting is grand in still wind but gusts and windhsear can make a mess of it. A lot of modern jets are designed to cruise like the clappers but are divas in the landing configuration. In this clip I get the impression he may be over correcting/controlling a little bit as he seems to make a big enough deflection one way and then the same deflection the other afterwards.

Interesting issue with Airbus side-sticks is that one guy can be throwing the stick around or have it all the way back(a la Air France) and the other guy's stick stays central and does not move like Boeing control wheels would. This means that a Captain flying with an inexperienced FO has to monitor the systems he monitors as PNF and keep a close eye on the inputs the FO is putting in as he cannot see them through his stick.

Shamrock231 wrote: »

Heard a story a couple days ago about a training Captain, who, as a practical joke on a new 250 hour FO's line training, convinced him that you still needed to shout "CLEAR!" out the window when starting the engines in their A320, leading to some funny looks when he was finally released onto the line.

Any of the pilots on here have stories of other practical jokes like this played on innocent new FOs?

Heard of a Training Captain on a check flight turning off the LCD screens without saying he had done so to see how the FO would react to having to use the back up instruments(and for ****s and giggles)...FO immediately called a mayday despite the fact the autopilot was still engaged and he had his backup instruments to hand.....the screens were off...thats all that was wrong! Training Captain is said to have given a rather gruff and firm "CANCEL MAYDAY" over the radio soon after.

An FO on his first day told to go "kick the tires" by the Captain did exactly that and came back 2 mins later.

basill wrote: »

Aer Lingus sops are for wide bodies to take the gear at 6.5nm from the runway threshold and for narrows 5.5nm. Ryanair probably have different sops if they are consistently taking the gear later.

I hope to sweet jeebus that you are talking nautical miles, not nanometers.

Wibbs wrote: »

The other aspect is handedness. Most people are righties, but many are lefties. Yes you can learn to be pretty good with your non dominant hand, but again it's adding an issue where it doesn't need to.

I'm a righty and fly with my right as an FO. However most pilots learn to fly with their left hand so I actually had a harder time adapting to flying with my dominant hand.

but when I first saw those side sticks mooted as a good thing I had a real "eh wut?" moment

Take the Air France jet that plunged into the atlantic ocean on the flight from Brazil a few years back. The copilot stalled her all the way into the sea. He was holding back on the stick all the way down(major WTF in a stall but anyway). The captain didn't realise this. If a central stick had been in place it's far more likely he would have been aware of this. It's kinda madness they don't even have servos that transmit what one pilot is doing.

This though is nothing to do with side sticks or traditional yokes. This is more a design Philosophy whereby Airbus don't have the sidesticks move in tandem. You could just as easily have this occur for traditional control.

Similarly Airbus could have implemented this feature for the side stick.

Wasn't it the case that the pilot in the jump seat could see the error i.e. Captain pulling the yoke up, but the co-pilot couldn't / didn't realise what the captain was doing? Sorry, just my amateur 10c:o

the engines seemed to almost switch off, is this done as a fuel saving exercise?

This procedure would save a lot of fuel, but the aircraft range would suffer dramatically.

one stage I felt the plane being pushed eastwards - was this a jet stream ribbon?

Wow, are you sure that you really felt the aircraft being pushed sidewards, this seems strange.

as a nervous flyer this was probably the most uncomfortable flight I was ever on (not a frequent flyer by any stretch).

You appear to be extremely sensitive to flying, your ears can play some terrible tricks on you as you have little or no visual reference, I can assure you that the only time that the engines will have the power reduced in a cruise is when they are in idle power for descent, and even this is a misnomer as for us, idle power means that the engine is rotating at 67% of the possible speed and still delivering power.

Pay scales are pretty accurate on ppjn. There is an ongoing pay review under way so watch this space on what happens to that. Short haul has a fixed pattern of 5 days on and 3 off. There is an online preferential bidding system where you can select a myriad of things like check in/out, flight lengths, specific flights etc. Depending on your seniority you get a notional satisfaction ratio that the software will try and achieve when it prepares the roster. Most give out about the system as it is not really transparent and also we effectively paid for it by giving up working conditions over the years. As a final measure you an swap flights or even entire rosters if you wish so long as its legal.

Perks are what you would expect from any national carrier. Staff travel on interline carriers to pretty much anywhere in the world. All standby of course - great if your single, not much fun if you have kids in tow. Crew meals, water etc all included.

Progression can be fast or slow depending on when you join. Like any airline with a seniority list it is invariably better to join at the beginning of a recruitment surge. All newcomers go to the rhs of the short haul fleet. Generally most would progress onto the rhs of the 330 around the 6-8 year mark. The record I heard was 18 months but I can't see that being repeated. Having said that some never see the 330 as command comes around beforehand.

With new bases and the 757 wet lease this is creating a huge range of opportunities. Commands are coming up in LHR on the little red for those that have been in around 6-7 years. Normal average would be 10-12 years to see the LHS of the A320 in the ROI.

Unfortunately none of us have an operational crystal ball so time will tell what the future will hold.

Can't answer your point number two as I have no idea.

Noob ridiculously stupid question, what are medical requirements for a pilot?
Sight, hearing, height?

The basic medical level is that of a CLASS 1 Medical certificate as defined by JAR. Then the company can apply any other restriction that they like. So if you are interested in a particular airline you should name them.

ID90s only Smurf with most of the national carriers around the world. On short haul flights your better off buying a confirmed ticket often not far off what the ID90 would have been.

smurfjed wrote: »

I actually get to work this week, deadhead to Paris tomorrow night, First Class (I hope), spend two nights in Paris and ferry an empty plane back. With our duty time regulations, one crew could operate both in the inbound and outbound flights, but that wouldn't be as much fun

Why two nights in Paris. Are you on stand by???? Would it not make more sense if they flew you out that day or the night before

Sorry if this is a stupid question???