The great big "ask an airline pilot" thread!

Lustrum

Bearcat wrote: »

Like a magnet I keeping peeking into this troll house and some genuine posters here too.

Re the novelty wearing off......it never was a novelty but a career that for me I was determined to succeed otherwise honey carts beckoned.

16000hrs later, 10000hrs in command, flown the lot from **** box turbo props to heavies today.... every day is a school day. If you keep that mantra branded into your forehead you will have a cherished career. Likewise the guy/gal in the rhs, be it at your peril you diss them with their lowly 400hrs.....these guys are mines of info and some damn fine handlers as well.

Many of my pals are multi million aires from my college days where i graded in the finance but do I regret one minute of my choosen path? nope....I still reef thru the books Pre my sim sessions, I still feel nervous on check rides, I'm still humble irrespective of the bluster I come out with.

Aviation is a humble game......live by the sword, die by the sword. End of.

Best post on here in a long time, thanks for that Bearcat, it'll make it easier to wake up tomorrow and start the job hunt all over again.

While there may be some trolls, some mickey-waving and more, again I have to thank all the guys (and maybe girls, I don't know) that answer here for giving their time and answering our questions, long may this thread keep going with quality information, and keep from descending into a shambles.


Question: Split rudders, some have them and some don't, why? And if anyone is flying three engine jets, is there much of a difference? If the middle one fails, would you divert or carry on with two?

Priority Right

Bearcat wrote: »

Sensible stuff

It never feels like work if the guy in the seat beside you is sound. Captain said to me as I was leaving work "imagine, some people had to work today" and he's right. It's like having a laugh with a mate most days.

Tenger

Priority Right wrote: »

It never feels like work if the guy in the seat beside you is sound. Captain said to me as I was leaving work "imagine, some people had to work today" and he's right. It's like having a laugh with a mate most days.

That's a good working environment, and of course this helps CRM......but most importantly it helps you enjoy your job.

I have heard some stories from BA, apparently they do not have the same cordial environment on their flightdecks.

host_found

Do pilots have ear ache as they descend??
If you do, i would you concentrate on landing!!

My ears pains like they are gonna blast :mad:

LeftBase

host_found wrote: »

Do pilots have ear ache as they descend??
If you do, i would you concentrate on landing!!

My ears pains like they are gonna blast :mad:

It can happen sometimes. Remember I was flying at 10,000 in a twin and when we descended I felt a slight discomfort in my ears. It didn't have a pressure system mind you.

Any problems can be solved by the valsalva technique(had to get that in somewhere!:D)

smurfjed

it never was a novelty but a career

Bearcat, for you it was a career, but for someone like Left Base, what is his future career path? He certainly cant continue forever on that salary, in 4 years he will have circa 2500 hrs right seat on the A320, what's next?

For me, this is the saddest part of our industry, extremely experienced First Officers are having less and less career opportunities, the airlines appear to prefer flexi workers on 50 pounds per hour. The Middle East carriers have stopped recruitment for the present time, so what other options are there?

For me I fly because it was a dream and i love it, but that doesn't give my employer the right to walk all over me.

Anyway its time for me to go back to work, standby 0000z

smurfjed

ronan45

Do pilots (be true now) ever get scared when going through severe turbulance?
I was in heavy turbulence once and i crapped my pants i was 100% sure the plane would not be able to withstand the movement lol.
So if you encounter heavy turbulence do you ever get scared or is the equivalent of me going over some speed ramps in my car?

LeftBase

ronan45 wrote: »

Do pilots (be true now) ever get scared when going through severe turbulance?
I was in heavy turbulence once and i crapped my pants i was 100% sure the plane would not be able to withstand the movement lol.
So if you encounter heavy turbulence do you ever get scared or is the equivalent of me going over some speed ramps in my car?

It's always less scary when you have the stick and are in control(or at least feel you are) of the situation.

Smurfjed -

Bearcat, for you it was a career, but for someone like Left Base, what is his future career path? He certainly cant continue forever on that salary, in 4 years he will have circa 2500 hrs right seat on the A320, what's next?

If my salary does not change significantly I'll be moving on when I can. However I don't think it's too much of a mystery where I may try and apply my A320 type rating!;)(which incidentally I received the thumbs up on today).

seller567

eatmyshorts wrote: »

That is just the sound of the engines being reduced to idle in order to start the descent from cruising altitude. Depending on aircraft type and altitude, that may be anywhere from 30 minutes prior to landing onwards.
Just think of it like being in a car; in order to slow down, you have to take your foot off the accelerator and let the engine idle. With an aircraft, you are having to lose altitude as well as speed and also a hell of a lot of inertia, so it takes a lot longer!

Thanks, that makes sense. I've got used to the noise of the landing gear going down, instead of thinking the arse has just fallen off the aircraft.

bluecode wrote: »

Years ago I was taking some people flying in a Cessna 172. As I came into land I reduced power quite abruptly. A girl in the back screamed. She thought the engine failed. Lesson learned. An easy mistake to make. .

:oCould easily be me. I nearly died a thousand deaths after an aborted landing in Newark shortly after 9/11. I was breathing into a brown paper bag, I got such a fright. Thankfully more frequent flyers around me, saying is was quite common.

PapaQuebec

LeftBase wrote: »

It's always less scary when you have the stick and are in control(or at least feel you are) of the situation.

Smurfjed -

If my salary does not change significantly I'll be moving on when I can. However I don't think it's too much of a mystery where I may try and apply my A320 type rating!;)(which incidentally I received the thumbs up on today).

Congrats on that!!

Shamrock231

LeftBase wrote: »

my A320 type rating!;)(which incidentally I received the thumbs up on today).

Congratulations.

Bearcat

Brill Left Base......love to hear guys moving up the ladder. Onwards and upwards!

Tenger

Some-one was asking a day or two ago about whether flight crew see icebergs in their travels:
Got this last week heading West, a few small bergs bobbing among the fjords of Western Greenland.

Western coast of greenland by tearbringer, on Flickr

eatmyshorts

Taken several years ago around Greenland I think.

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Pic (1540) by r_and_j1701, on Flickr

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Pic (2251) by r_and_j1701, on Flickr

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Pic (2267) by r_and_j1701, on Flickr

[IMG][/img]
Pic (1545) by r_and_j1701, on Flickr

Bearcat

Here's my travels over Greenland.





Here's one routing southbound abeam Portland......you can see the tip of cape cod on the horizon


Over the pond



The Alps

cavanman112

Great Pic's Bearcat, what Aircraft type were they taken from ?

CaliforniaDream

Flight I was on recently flew over Greenland. First time I've seen it as most flight paths seem to go near it but not over.
My pictures look a lot like Bearcats.

It was gorgeous to look at but it was scary how close to the ground you seem compared to the ocean you've just come from and somewhere like US or Ireland.

I hate flying and when over the ocean all I think about is flight 447 and when over somewhere like Greenland all I could think about was Alive.
I despair! I'm only happy when I'm flying over a well developed country and we've begun the descent.

seller567

I'd be similar CaliforniaDream. I really don't like transatlantic flights at all. I flew from Jamaica to London and nearly didn't get on the plane that night, I was so terrified. It was directly across the Atlantic. It didn't help that we had been delayed 24 hours due to technical problems with the plane. The airline were telling us they were troubleshooting the problem. Then they told us, they had fixed the plane and we were ready to go. Honestly I was in tears walking up the steps to the plane.

Tenger

seller567 wrote: »

...... It didn't help that we had been delayed 24 hours due to technical problems with the plane. The airline were telling us they were troubleshooting the problem. Then they told us, they had fixed the plane and we were ready to go. Honestly I was in tears walking up the steps to the plane.

The main thing to remember here is that the 2 guys in the cockpit would never ever depart in an aircraft they were not confident in. The Captain has the absolute authority in this regard. You can be sure that in your particular incident the flight crew were very closely involved/informed of the 'troubleshooting' and had a good chat to the engineers before deciding to depart. Pilots want to get home safe every day too.

Wise Old Elf

Quick Q for the pilots, relevant to flying over Greenland, etc:

I've only ever been transatlantic once, Air Canada Heathrow to Calgary and return Toronto to Dublin. I noticed when we were west of Ireland, and I presume over the ocean, the engine noise was extremely loud (IIRC, it was a 767).

Is it a case that the pilot can go full throttle when over the ocean and unpopulated areas? It's not something I've ever noticed on short haul European flights.

Thanks. This is a very entertaining thread.

John_Mc

Disco Stuart wrote: »

Quick Q for the pilots, relevant to flying over Greenland, etc:

I've only ever been transatlantic once, Air Canada Heathrow to Calgary and return Toronto to Dublin. I noticed when we were west of Ireland, and I presume over the ocean, the engine noise was extremely loud (IIRC, it was a 767).

Is it a case that the pilot can go full throttle when over the ocean and unpopulated areas? It's not something I've ever noticed on short haul European flights.

Thanks. This is a very entertaining thread.

I'm not a pilot but can tell you that airplanes rarely go full throttle. At take off they would come close, especially at high altitude airports and in hot climates at heavy loads, but where possible they try to reduce wear and tear on the engines.

At cruise you'd usually be about 90% but the actual level depends on your cruise speed.

The noise you heard was probably high winds in the Jet stream but maybe the real pilots can offer some insight here

smurfjed

Airliners are generally flown at a specific speed that is either constant, (Mach Number) or variable based on a cost calculation, (Cost Index). It is extremely rare for them to be flown at maximum speed (MMO). In cruise, they are limited by a number of factors such as maximum cruise thrust, which is a different limitation to Takeoff Thrust or Climb Thrust.
It is possible that an aircraft with a specific oceanic entry time, might slow down to achieve that time, then accelerate to the normal ocean crossing speed. You would therefore hear an increase in thrust that appears to indicate that the aircraft is "going full throttle"

As for the idea that you can hear the jetstream, this isnt the case.

These days, the vast majority of takeoffs are conducted using some form of reduced takeoff thrust, these reductions can be up to about 45% of the original thrust. I was talking to a corporate B747-400 Flight Engineer yesterday that stated that even on their longest flight, 16.5 hours, they reduced the takeoff thrust to less than 90% of the installed reduced thrust.

smurfjed

host_found

Do pilots watch Aircrash Investigations?;)

LeftBase

host_found wrote: »

Do pilots watch Aircrash Investigations?;)

I've always watched that for no other reason than I thought put in a similar situation maybe an episode would pop into my head and I would catch what the guys in crash didn't.

Tenger

LeftBase wrote: »

I've always watched that for no other reason than I thought put in a similar situation maybe an episode would pop into my head and I would catch what the guys in crash didn't.

While I acknowledge that value of watching the dramatised version for descriptive purposes, personally I would prefer that flight crew rely on updated SOP's and SIM training than remembering an episode of Aircrash Investigation. What I like about Aircrash is how each incident adds to the training of commercial pilots.

LeftBase

Tenger wrote: »

While I acknowledge that value of watching the dramatised version for descriptive purposes, personally I would prefer that flight crew rely on updated SOP's and SIM training than remembering an episode of Aircrash Investigation. What I like about Aircrash is how each incident adds to the training of commercial pilots.

I dont base my entire working knowledge on it. It's just useful to have in the bag.;)

pclancy

Sometimes the sets they use in Aircrash Investigations are cringeworthy. The cockpit and instrumentation often look totally different to the real things and are totally dramatized.

eatmyshorts

I watch it, but sometimes the over-dramatisation is annoying. My personal peeve is that the pilots are always wrestling the controls with both hands, even during normal flight. Sometimes both pilots at the same time!

Lustrum

Lustrum wrote: »

Question: Split rudders, some have them and some don't, why? And if anyone is flying three engine jets, is there much of a difference? If the middle one fails, would you divert or carry on with two?

Anyone got any answers for the above?

Do you get to bring your razor and other forbidden items through security being the pilot?

smurfjed

Do you get to bring your razor and other forbidden items through security being the pilot?

Depends on the airport to be perfectly honest. In Europe the answer is generally no.

Our 3 Engine aircraft all have "Land As Soon as Possible". I have never flown a 3 engine airliner, with the exception of doing the MCC in B727, but from colleagues flying 3 engine airliners or corporate jets, they say that losing the middle engine is the easiest.

smurfjed