Ask The Pilot

[Simo]

With I pad roll out sounds like IT will be busy for quite awhile getting it all set up.

The great thing about doing the I pads is a lot of information can be updated and you don't even realise it has happened.

 

[mjt57]

The great thing about doing the I pads is a lot of information can be updated and you don't even realise it has happened.

assuming, of course, that auto background sync actually works. None of the apps on my iPad do a very good job of this. In particular the Herald-Sun and Age newspapers apps are supposed to do it, but don't.

I wonder how QF IT will handle pilots' natural urges to "fiddle" with the ipads...

 

[chrisb]

I wonder how QF IT will handle pilots' natural urges to "fiddle" with the ipads...

Apple have an Enterprise deployment system that allows them to be locked down. (Probably the same system they used when they deployed them on the 767 for pax - unfortunately I never found myself on that aircraft so it's just a guess)

As for updates, I'm assuming an app that probably costs many many thousands of dollars per year, is mission critical and potentially has legal ramifications if it gets out of sync with reality will handle things better than the SMH's daily news update.

 

[harvyk]

Do pilots \ cabin crew have a checked \ carry on bag weight limit?

Also can pilots \ cabin crew buy duty free on each entry \ exit to \ from countries? If so are the limits the same as what us mere mortals are entitled to?

 

[jb747]

Do pilots \ cabin crew have a checked \ carry on bag weight limit?

Yes.

Also can pilots \ cabin crew buy duty free on each entry \ exit to \ from countries? If so are the limits the same as what us mere mortals are entitled to?

No, generally duty free is very restrictive. Many countries don't allow crew to buy/import anything at all. Australia used to allow one passenger allowance per year, though that changed a few years ago. Mostly the whole concept of duty free is pretty much discredited anyway...apart from alcohol, most things are cheaper in the shopping centres.

 

[jb747]

assuming, of course, that auto background sync actually works. None of the apps on my iPad do a very good job of this. In particular the Herald-Sun and Age newspapers apps are supposed to do it, but don't.

The Age manually synchs perfectly. I've never heard any mention of it being automatic. And the HS app is one of the worst I've ever seen....

I wonder how QF IT will handle pilots' natural urges to "fiddle" with the ipads...

Hopefully QF IT will have nothing to do with it, and it will be run by flight ops. A group of the pilots have already set up their own system that works perfectly, so it can't be that hard. Just need to keep IT and media people away from it. Keeping IT people away from anything operational seems like a generally good idea.

As for fiddling, they'll actually have to overcome a quite large group of people who want nothing to do with them.

 

[Awesom Andy]

apart from alcohol, most things are cheaper in the shopping centres.

Not sure about other entry points, but in SYD, alcohol is cheaper from Dan Murphy, thereby making the entire duty free shop in SYD completely and utterly useless and a waste of space.

 

[mjt57]

The Age manually synchs perfectly. I've never heard any mention of it being automatic.

Now that the Age is in Newstand it's supposed to do it in the background, or so I've read.

Keeping IT people away from anything operational seems like a generally good idea.

Amen to that. Where I work we had the very devil trying to keep our operational gear separate to the corporate IT. Thankfully we won out. Otherwise we'd have been saddled with software that's terrible to use, buggy and slow with updates. Or worse, some IT "guru" in London logging in to perform "updates" and resulting in a systems crash which takes us offline...

As for fiddling, they'll actually have to overcome a quite large group of people who want nothing to do with them.

That's odd. I'd have thought that most pilots would be eager to adopt new technologies, gadgets and so on.

Maybe not, eh?

 

[SeatBackForward]

Hopefully QF IT will have nothing to do with it, and it will be run by flight ops. A group of the pilots have already set up their own system that works perfectly, so it can't be that hard. Just need to keep IT and media people away from it. Keeping IT people away from anything operational seems like a generally good idea.

Couldn't agree more. I'm constantly reminding our IT Dept that they are a service provider to the rest of the business. Qantas doesn't fly planes around to keep the IT people busy. I once heard a bit of wisdom from a management consultant (possibly the first time ever) that when IT starts determining how your business should function... head for the hills.

You guys already using the I pads should sell the tool back to Qantas!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using AustFreqFly

 

[tuppaware]

Couldn't agree more. I'm constantly reminding our IT Dept that they are a service provider to the rest of the business. Qantas doesn't fly planes around to keep the IT people busy. I once heard a bit of wisdom from a management consultant (possibly the first time ever) that when IT starts determining how your business should function... head for the hills.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using AustFreqFly

I think people need to remember not all IT departments are evil. Its unfortunate that many companies IT model now reflects a change in business where we have to 'generate' income rather then support the 'main' business needs. I would say Idevices are best left as Apple intended them - user pays user controls. I would say the same for Qantas.

 

[Sprucegoose]

Not sure about other entry points, but in SYD, alcohol is cheaper from Dan Murphy, thereby making the entire duty free shop in SYD completely and utterly useless and a waste of space.

Ah duty free.....not profit free!

 

[mella2007]

First post to this thread and thanks to the pilot for answering so many questions and providing information that a lot of us would have no idea about.

Can you request certain crews or First Officer's or is this done automatically? A friend of mine is a CSM for Qantas and she can request who she works with, so just wondered if it was the same with pilots (as I'm sure after so many years there are people you would/wouldn't prefer to work alongside for a long period of time in such a confined space)

 

[jb747]

Can you request certain crews or First Officer's or is this done automatically? A friend of mine is a CSM for Qantas and she can request who she works with, so just wondered if it was the same with pilots (as I'm sure after so many years there are people you would/wouldn't prefer to work alongside for a long period of time in such a confined space)

No, you can't. The bidding system allows quite a lot of options, from particular trips, to generic bids (for instance all I bid for are trips longer than 4 days that start or finish in Melbourne). The more specific the bid the worse the outcome (you might mess up an entire two month roster, just to get one trip), and of course the more senior you have to be for it to have any real effect anyway.

 

[Fantic125]

Boeing have got a video of a 747-8F at maximum takeoff weight doing a rejected takeoff with warn brakes at 320km/h and with no reverse thrust. It was done as part of the certification for the plane.
Boeing 747-8 performs ultimate rejected takeoff (Video)

Granted it is an very extreme example. But the brakes got to an estimated 2500 degrees C. The brakes and tires were damaged.

For that type of temperature they would certainly have to be some form of carbon composite. A few years ago I was involved a project upgrading M113 armoured personnel carriers which included a brake system upgrade that wasn't quite effective (initially) as it should have been.

Watching brake discs glowing red hot at 680c and starting to throw off bits of molten steel is pretty impressive, and that's only trying to stop an 18 tonne vehicle...

 

[medhead]

I would have guessed the brake temperature would have used some sort of thermo-couple.

For that type of temperature they would certainly have to be some form of carbon composite. A few years ago I was involved a project upgrading M113 armoured personnel carriers which included a brake system upgrade that wasn't quite effective (initially) as it should have been.

Watching brake discs glowing red hot at 680c and starting to throw off bits of molten steel is pretty impressive, and that's only trying to stop an 18 tonne vehicle...

They've put on weight from the 1990s. Used to be about 12 or 13 tonnes from memory. Considering that steering those things involves braking they'd want something decent.


Sent from the Throne

 

[mjt57]

Watching brake discs glowing red hot at 680c and starting to throw off bits of molten steel is pretty impressive, and that's only trying to stop an 18 tonne vehicle...

Yeah, you only have to watch the V8s in low light conditions under heavy braking to see that, too (albeit without the molten metal)...

 

[simongr]

I know that there are carefully controlled slots sold by airports do retake of and landing but is there control over who has access to flight paths. I do no mean whilst in the air but more from a scheduling perspective. I was at a sustainability presentation and as a side topic they talked about to fly from hamburg to Majorca twice in one day you needed to take off at 6AM and it started me thinking about who controls access the flight paths.

Just bumping this question - not sure if it got missed in the Corp IT bashing

I guess I was just wondering who controls access to flight paths in advance. If BA wanted to fly LHR-SYD over DXB and Emirates wanted to fly DXB-SYD they could be using the same general flight path (actual flight paths specified here are obviously not the right places where this could happen - they are just for illustrative purposes) - multiply that across many carriers and potentially (in theory) it is only once you're in the air that you find out there is a problem.

 

[jb747]

I guess I was just wondering who controls access to flight paths in advance. If BA wanted to fly LHR-SYD over DXB and Emirates wanted to fly DXB-SYD they could be using the same general flight path (actual flight paths specified here are obviously not the right places where this could happen - they are just for illustrative purposes) - multiply that across many carriers and potentially (in theory) it is only once you're in the air that you find out there is a problem.

The only place we see an example of an airway being controlled is over Afghanistan. When you are planned over there, at the peak times, you have an allocated 'wheels up' time that you have to hit within 5 minutes. So, for instance, leaving Singapore, your scheduled time may be on the hour, and if the company gets what it wants, the wheels up will be 21 minutes later. At times the delay can be so long as to cause issues with crew duty time.

Delays that we know of are easily handled, but if you have a passenger who fails to board, and turns up five minutes later, or a last minute hassle of any kind, you could easily miss the slot, and so have to wait for the next one...which could be hours away.

Within Europe travel between city pairs is controlled, but mostly the constraints come up with unusual weather. We rarely see them.

On an airway, if it becomes congested it may mean you don't get the altitudes that you want, or you may be given a totally new route by ATC. It's a bit of a chess game to try to advantage yourself as much as possible through all of this. I've seen aircraft pulled out of the airway, and simply left to languish at a holding fix. Being held low, for many hours, is a common happening. It burns much more fuel (which you may not have), and slows you down (you fly slower when held low). It can also expose you to nastier weather. Working around this is a large part of what we do in the cruise.

 

[Major]

When you decide to detour around weather is it a pattern you can see and didn't like the look of it, or did it show up on radar ?

If it's a visible pattern then I assume at night that you only detour around radar weather (apart from obvious lightning)

 

[Simo]

With the Olympics in LHR are you seeing more flights from QF appearing or even some charter flights taking over large qty of sporting equipment with some people on board.