Ask The Pilot

[FuzzyAUS]

QF93 on Tuesday 19 Aug, and 94 Wednesday 20th.

Wow, not often you go that direction!!

 

[jb747]

Do you see birds flying near your aircraft often?

When do you find out your roster for early-mid November?

You notice birds go past at times. Sometimes you even get to watch them impact the FO's windscreen... Every now and then you'll write up a suspected bird strike for the engineers to look for.

Current roster is basically August/September. The next will be October/mid - November. So it depends on the date you're interested in. Either 13 September or 8 November, with the flight date cutover being the 15th of November. Right now I'm on a blank line, so I have no roster and end up with standby and ad hoc flights.

 

[Atleastonce]

Ah, the joys of flight controls. The elevator controls pitch. The ailerons control roll. And the rudder controls yaw. Other controls come into it as well (just to complicate the issue). Spoilers also control roll. The flying tail of most airliners is there for trim, but any movement also results in pitch. And then things get a bit more complex, as controls also tend to have secondary effects. A rudder input will cause yaw, but will also cause roll in the same direction. An aileron input will cause some yaw, but this time in the adverse (i.e. wrong) direction. Spoilers will also cause some yaw, but in the correct direction.

Whilst yaw is how you drive your car around, it is not how you steer an aircraft. Yaw is felt as a quite uncomfortable lateral motion. We want to fly the aircraft so that it is 'in balance'...so that it is pointed straight into the air flow. A turn involves banking, which has the effect of pointing the lift vector (remember that from high school) into the turn. The components of the lift vector will then break down into a part pointing into the turn, and a component in the vertical (which is the bit that keeps you flying). As you enter the bank, slightly more total lift is required (so that the vertical component remains equal to the aircraft weight for a level turn), which means you need a little nose up pitch and a little more power. At this point I haven't mentioned the rudder at all, because only a tiny input is needed in any turn, and in most airliners this is done automatically by a yaw damper system. Even without a yaw damper, you can pretty much treat the rudders as foot rests for 99% of the time.

But...on the ground, we don't have the ability to bank the aircraft. So, when taking off or landing, the steering is accomplished by a mix of nose gear steering and rudder. Generally the rudder will have enough airflow over it to have more steering power than the nose gear at speeds above about 70 knots. We don't change from using one system to another though. The two are interlinked through the rudder pedals, so that on the ground, full rudder deflection results in about 7º of nose gear steering displacement. The steering tiller (which we don't use on the runway) will give about 70º of n/g displacement. The upshot is that you'll often see very large rudder displacements near the start of a take off roll, simply because the rudder is ineffective, and the interconnect gives limited nose gear steering...so a fairly mild 3.5º n/g steering input would also result in half rudder deflection.

Crosswinds...taking off in a crosswind can require large amounts of rudder, as the aircraft will want to weather cough into the wind...whereas we'd rather have it stay on the runway. Landing in a crosswind, the rudder is used during/after the flare to point the aircraft down the runway, and out of the airflow.

Engine failure....will leave you with a large amount of thrust on one side of the aircraft, and a lot less, or none, on the other. That unbalanced thrust will try to yaw the aircraft, and it has to be countered by the rudder. Most airliners will have sufficient rudder authority to counter that thrust on the ground from a speed of around 120 knots...known as Vmcg (minimum control ground). Airborne that speed is slightly lower because a small amount of bank can also be used. With two engines out on the same side, the 380 has sufficient rudder authority to counter full power down to 144 knots. An engine failure at just over V1 (and continue) in the sim, would require pretty well full deflection. After you'd flown away, cleaned up and accelerated, that would reduce to about ¼ deflection...but it will have to be adjusted for every speed and power change....

I reconstruct motor vehicle accidents and a steering input lose of control usually produces tyre yaw marks. Interesting evidence when describing this to a jury and then explaining the physics derivations to calculate velocity/speed from yaw.

 

[Awesom Andy]

Sometimes you even get to watch them impact the FO's windscreen...

So is it in the FO's job description that he/she shall take the hits for the captain?

 

[mjt57]

JB, sometime ago, when discussing taking the A380 into JFK, I think that you wrote something like, "it's a dumb place to take the 380".

Why's this?

I ask as I saw 380s from Air France, Emirates and Singapore Airlines there yesterday (or was it the day before).

Also, will Qantas continue its LAX-JFK route once the B744's retired? Presumably, if it does, it'll use the A380?

On a side note, when transfering from TBIT to T3 via shuttle bus we got to drive almost under 2 QF 380s and a B744. When you're up that close and personal to it they sure are huge (and their APUs are considerably louder than the B777s that we passed by, too).

Finally, landing in MEL yesterday there was a fair bit of fog. The captain said that conditions were foggy but no holdups were anticipated. What ILS service operates there?

 

[markis10]

Finally, landing in MEL yesterday there was a fair bit of fog. The captain said that conditions were foggy but no holdups were anticipated. What ILS service operates there?

The question has been covered a number of times.

My criticism of Australian runway aids in the past wasn't so much that you couldn't do an autoland, but that doing so got you to no lower a minima than a normal manual landing. CAT II/III and GLS autolands are slowly appearing here now (well Melbourne has the CAT II/III, and Sydney the GLS, though it's minima are still extremely high).

 

[jb747]

JB, sometime ago, when discussing taking the A380 into JFK, I think that you wrote something like, "it's a dumb place to take the 380".

Why's this?

I ask as I saw 380s from Air France, Emirates and Singapore Airlines there yesterday (or was it the day before).

JFK is a very old airport, designed to handle aircraft around the size of the 707. Taxiways are narrow, and the turns are a squeeze even for the 747. Parking is also very tight, with obstructions all over the place. Air France have already given a good example of what happens in a tight area.

Also, will Qantas continue its LAX-JFK route once the B744's retired? Presumably, if it does, it'll use the A380?

Who knows. The 747ERs will be around for quite a while yet.

Finally, landing in MEL yesterday there was a fair bit of fog. The captain said that conditions were foggy but no holdups were anticipated. What ILS service operates there?

Melbourne has a CAT IIIB ILS on runway 16, with a minima (for our operations) of 0 feet, and 75 metres vis. So, as long as you had sufficient fuel to carry an alternate, and so could actually do the approach, there should be no issue landing. NB, that's for the A380....other aircraft have different minima, so could be more restricted.

 

[mjt57]

JFK is a very old airport, designed to handle aircraft around the size of the 707. Taxiways are narrow, and the turns are a squeeze even for the 747. Parking is also very tight, with obstructions all over the place. Air France have already given a good example of what happens in a tight area.

That's interesting. The A380s all seemed to be parked wherever they could get a spot. None of them were at any gates and the Emirates one was being towed somewhere.

Who knows. The 747ERs will be around for quite a while yet.

Maybe I should ask this elsewhere, but have the QF 744s been upgraded for passenger comfort? eg. the 380s have premium economy, snazzy in seat video and so on. Certainly, if I were able to get on a QF flight in Melbourne and land in New York in the same seat it would make the trip a bit less arduous. It was our original plan but lack of decent seats when we wanted to fly forced us to choose Sir Richard's lot.

Melbourne has a CAT IIIB ILS on runway 16, with a minima (for our operations) of 0 feet, and 75 metres vis.

Yeah, we landed on 16 (approached from the east, then right turn south). Looking out the window I couldn't see past the wing tip, but I don't know what sort of vis that the crew had. Anyway, there was an audible sigh from the general pax pop once we crossed the threshold and landed. Certainly, it was smooth enough, too, presumably auto-land?

 

[jb747]

Maybe I should ask this elsewhere, but have the QF 744s been upgraded for passenger comfort? eg. the 380s have premium economy, snazzy in seat video and so on. Certainly, if I were able to get on a QF flight in Melbourne and land in New York in the same seat it would make the trip a bit less arduous. It was our original plan but lack of decent seats when we wanted to fly forced us to choose Sir Richard's lot.

As far as I know the 747ERs were to be fitted with the same business class seats as the 380s. I haven't flown on one in years, so I have no idea of the status of that work. They already had PE.

 

[mannej]

As far as I know the 747ERs were to be fitted with the same business class seats as the 380s. I haven't flown on one in years, so I have no idea of the status of that work. They already had PE.

The ER's and OJS/T/U have all been updated to feature the A380 product and has been completed for a while.

 

[petercr]

LAX to JFK is nearly always the same bird that has done the SYD-LAX leg of qf107 so unless you've come from SYD you'll probably be in a different seat on a different plane. Coming back depends on what time QF108 leaves JFK if it's running late as they sometimes swap with QF16.

 

[jb747]

LAX to JFK is nearly always the same bird that has done the SYD-LAX leg of qf107 so unless you've come from SYD you'll probably be in a different seat on a different plane. Coming back depends on what time QF108 leaves JFK if it's running late as they sometimes swap with QF16.

As you always need to go through customs and immigration at LA, then it probably doesn't matter whether there is an aircraft swap or not.

 

[mjt57]

As you always need to go through customs and immigration at LA, then it probably doesn't matter whether there is an aircraft swap or not.

I did see that when we were exiting customs (the bit where bags are collected) that we had two avenues of escape. One was outside to either ground transportation or a drop off area for transfers, or for those continuing with Qantas.

Next time we're doing Qantas, regardless. Delta sucks, whilst VA was OK, but not sure that it was worth what we paid.

Pity that they don't do customs and immigration at JFK, to allow pax in transit to hang around a transit lounge, such as what we did last year when flying to Britain when stopping at KUL and on the way home at SIN.

 

[smeacs]

JB in the video a few psots back with teh A340 engine shutdown there seemed to be a lot of chatter to some gorund based tech support or brains trust. Is that what you would expect or does it more likely depend on the loaction of the aircraft etc?

 

[jb747]

JB in the video a few psots back with teh A340 engine shutdown there seemed to be a lot of chatter to some gorund based tech support or brains trust. Is that what you would expect or does it more likely depend on the loaction of the aircraft etc?

It depends upon the circumstances. Talking to the ground is really only of any value if whatever you are dealing with doesn't have a laid down procedure. They are engineers. They don't have any expertise in flying the aircraft and so their advice has to be taken with a large grain of salt. If Airbus/Boeing have laid down a procedure...then it would be unusual not to follow it.

 

[jb747]

I did see that when we were exiting customs (the bit where bags are collected) that we had two avenues of escape. One was outside to either ground transportation or a drop off area for transfers, or for those continuing with Qantas.

Next time we're doing Qantas, regardless. Delta sucks, whilst VA was OK, but not sure that it was worth what we paid.

Pity that they don't do customs and immigration at JFK, to allow pax in transit to hang around a transit lounge, such as what we did last year when flying to Britain when stopping at KUL and on the way home at SIN.

It is a US ruling. You clear customs/immigration at the first point of landing. The aircraft is treated as domestic beyond that point.

 

[por930]

JB, on the long haul flights such as 15-16 hours where you are the designated captain for the flight presently on a rest break, and if things go pear shaped(not just a weather avoidance issue) are you called back to the coughpit, regardless of what rank other relief crew presently flying have, or do they have some latitude to make decisions?
On your rest break(s), do you put your Qantas PJs on and get some sleep, or just simply loosen the tie, & take the shoes off?
Do you have mini breaks of say every 4 hours or so, as I would imagine you, as senior captain on board would be at the controls for the take off and landing, and maybe monitoring the pilot flying?

 

[petercr]

It is a US ruling. You clear customs/immigration at the first point of landing. The aircraft is treated as domestic beyond that point.

Coming back it's Customs etc as you enter terminal 7 at JFK and then nothing else until you hit Oz.

It's also kind of nice to think that doing the trans-America leg that you don't have to put with every other man and his dog taking a full-on domestic flight...

 

[jb747]

JB, on the long haul flights such as 15-16 hours where you are the designated captain for the flight presently on a rest break, and if things go pear shaped(not just a weather avoidance issue) are you called back to the coughpit, regardless of what rank other relief crew presently flying have, or do they have some latitude to make decisions?

They will call you back for anything 'major', but, they will carry out whatever procedures are required without waiting for your return.

On your rest break(s), do you put your Qantas PJs on and get some sleep, or just simply loosen the tie, & take the shoes off?

Depends upon the time of day. Sometimes I get into a track suit and try to sleep, whilst at other times on my break I might go for a walk and talk to the passengers, or even watch a movie/read a book.

Do you have mini breaks of say every 4 hours or so, as I would imagine you, as senior captain on board would be at the controls for the take off and landing, and maybe monitoring the pilot flying?

We only carry one captain, so I always have to be in my seat up for take off and landing (and I'm not that trusting anyway), and then any time below about 20,000. Even if we happened to have another captain on the crew, the nominated PIC and FO would be in the seats for take off and landing, and the extra bloke would be in one of the jump seats.

Breaks are doled out as the captain sees fit. You take into account the time of day, both local and body clock, and then find out what sort of sleep (if any) people managed to get before the flight. Out of LA you might have two hours in the first break, and then four in the second. A daylight sector might consist of multiple 2 hour, or perhaps 1 then 2, then 3. Sometimes on the London flights, ex Singapore, we were able to break in it half, if someone had had a really good sleep prior to call. It varies every time.

 

[por930]

Thanks for your reply jb