The great big "ask an airline pilot" thread!

I was looking up at Emirates, and they offer free accommodation, healthcare and many other perks.

You really have to do more research regarding these kinds of perks, unfortunately the Emirates of today is no where near the Emirates of 5 years ago in relation to how they are treating employees, who knows what they will be like in 5 years.

Apart from that, the experience needed for an expatriate to fly for Emirates means that it wont be your first airline employer.

Better to stick in Europe or Europe/USA for your training. I see no benefit of coming to the Middle East to train.

merryberry wrote: »

Question...when at cruising altitude the flight deck turns on the 'seatbelts on' sign, cabin crew announces over pa that captain has now turned on the fasten seatbelt sign, toilets off limits, please return to your seats...at this stage im bracing myself for a rattling that never comes...not even a jolt. After a short while the seatbelts on sign is turned off and cabin crew resume their business. Im sure its just precautionary but this has happened on a few flights ive been on lately with Ryanair. What is prompting pilot to do this...weather radar??

They also turn the seat belt signs on if one of the cockpit crew is going to the toilet!

Dunno how many pilots post replies, but hopefully I can find one who knows! I live in Bray and have noticed (from FR24) that for the late night incoming flights from the canaries and down that direction they tend to come up from Cork direction, pass NE over Bray and looop out over the bay to land on Runday 28 in Dublin. My questions is this - is it around Bray that you do a significant slow-down? Two things make me wonder this - firstly, FR24 seems to suggest I might be right, but secondly, the noise of them passing overhead is always very strange. There's a huge change in frequency of the sound, beyond what I would have guessed the doppler effect causes. I've noticed when on places also that as the flaps go down (or is it up/out) you can feel a slow-down and hear a change in noises outside.

Anyways, long question short, is the typical slow-down point for flights flying NE over Bray to land on 28 around Bray somewhere?

smurfjed wrote: »

Generally crews are following a prescribe profile for each descent, in our case its now something like this:

• 10,000 slow to 250 KIAS
• 23 nms to touchdown, reduce speed to minimum clean speed
• 18 nms to touchdown, select Flaps 1 and slow down to Flap 1 speed
• Intercept heading, select Flaps 5 and slow down to Flaps 5 speed
• Glideslope alive or 2000 RA, selected Flaps 20 and slow down to 160 KIAS
• 1500 feet, gear down, followed by Flaps 30, slow down for last time.

There will be some leeway in this, and differences between aircraft types, but if you are living somewhere that is about 18 nms from touchdown, then dont be surprised if you see aircraft doing the same thing every time. As most descents are in idle power, any change in the aircraft noise will be created by the flaps or speedbrakes.

Hope this helps.

Perfect, fantastic to get such a detailed answer - thanks a million. Yeah I measured roughly with this tool and would guess it's about 20-25 nms from touchdown where I am. Sounds a bit further out than the flaps point, but maybe it's not an exact science or maybe I'm measuring badly!

Out of curiosity would this vary much between aircraft type?

g0g wrote: »

Anyways, long question short, is the typical slow-down point for flights flying NE over Bray to land on 28 around Bray somewhere?

Roughly, this is around the area of the first waypoint on the arrival procedure (SORIN) for RW28 that has a speed limit and a level altitude segment thereafter. Prior to reaching this point most aircraft will be in an idle power descent and once crossing the waypoint the engines will spool up in order to maintain level flight. The aircraft will then maintain level flight at 230kts and proceed on the arrival until cleared to turn towards the runway (usually direct to a waypoint called LAPMO). For most medium jets (e.g. 737) anyway they wouldn't need to begin to extend flaps on this arrival till approaching 10 miles unless given a lower speed restriction by ATC.

smurfjed wrote: »

dont be surprised if you see aircraft doing the same thing every time. As most descents are in idle power, any change in the aircraft noise will be created by the flaps or speedbrakes.

Hope this helps.

gear down seem to happen just around where my folks house is on the run in to land on 28 @ Dub. the 330's make a low howl every time! the 320/1's are much higher in pitch. 777 on the other hand sound pretty distinctive

thanks for the excellent explanation

smurfjed wrote: »

My latest words of distress are "monitor radar display"....... clearly and loudly shows that i didn't press the buttons in the correct order


Got a buzz this morning when I saw the class schedule for "B787 Transition".... its over 8 years since Boeing walked in trying to sell these, so its nice to see them finally arrive :)

You training up on the 787 yourself Smurfjed?

smurfjed wrote: »

Nope.......777....which is quite a jump from my previous 73,200 lb aircraft

So from a 737-400 to a 777, nice!

billie1b wrote: »

the DOW of the 734 is in and around 73,000lb.

It's about 149,000lbs or 68t

Principal decided to ground/sell his 5 G-IV's, so the crew got moved to other aircraft or retired.

73,200 lbs (MTOW) to 632,400 (MTOW).....Posted this a month back :)

smurfjed wrote: »

I was extremely fond of this one.....



But now I'm getting used to this one......

Wow, good memory. Officially we don't have any First Officers, so the job title is B777 Captain, but we will be limited to the right seat for a specific number of hours based on experience. So I get to fly a bigger aircraft but lose the "star" above my 4 stripes and the hotel suite :)

Greater experience and cost not a factor.