Ask The Pilot

[Boris spatsky]

Thanks all, now to the captains:
is it ok to go when you gotta go while set belt sign is on and the plane is bout to land?

Whilst the seat belt sign is on, you are essentially risking your own safety to get up and use the toilet. Some companies will require the aircraft to go around if on final approach if everyone is not seated and secure prior to landing - so you may be the one therefore delaying the aircraft from landing. If it's a case of Bali Belly, then you shouldn't be on the plane in the first place

 

[jb747]

Is it ok to go when you gotta go while set belt sign is on and the plane is bout to land?

Of course you can 'go'.....just don't get out of your seat.

 

[Boris spatsky]

ATC varies enormously around the world. The best that I see is around London. Around the world, UK trained is also a good indicator.

sydney has quite the number of imports nowadays and they are all exceptional - new female Brit on ground along with the Canadian, also Canadian and US on Approach/Director. All very efficient.

The Canadian guy on ground was asked last year whether he thought it was a 'super busy day' and he said 'not really, nothing compared to JFK'

 

[Boris spatsky]

Jb, Borris etc, when you perform a go around, do you prefer to apply manual throttles so you can better control the amount of grunt you are about to receive and does your company leave it to your discretion as to TOGA or manual?

Our policy is to let the autopilot fly the go around; if you are manually flying, then you initiate the go around yourself and then put the autopilot in soon thereafter. It does quite a nice job of it (my most recent in Melbourne approaching runway 16 due to windshear a few weeks ago) and has built in protections that are useful. When we hit the TOGA button, the autothrottles re-engage automatically. You can always override them though by pushing the throttles up yourself (which you do as standard in a go around anyway).

 

[RAM]

And there are those of us who despite having a Jimmy Riddle immediately prior to boarding need another one immediately after boarding.

Age catches up with us all.

That is understandable. However quite often the ones I see/hear are, more often than not, aged from 20s to 40s. Resorting to generalisation (in Y that is not J) seniors are less "i am the centre of the universe" than the mobile phone generations.

BTW - Age does indeed catch up with us all but the young age at a faster rate!

 

[defurax]

I know RT is not the best and most impartial news corporation out there...but if this report is true (https://www.rt.com/news/337128-emirates-pilots-fatigue-scandal/) it could hurt Emirates.
To the pilots here, the article mentions that "pilot flying hours" might not include the 1 hour flight preparation when arriving at the airport, are the working hours guidelines ICAO/IATA based or country specific?

 

[TomVexille]

I know RT is not the best and most impartial news corporation out there...but if this report is true (https://www.rt.com/news/337128-emirates-pilots-fatigue-scandal/) it could hurt Emirates.
To the pilots here, the article mentions that "pilot flying hours" might not include the 1 hour flight preparation when arriving at the airport, are the working hours guidelines ICAO/IATA based or country specific?

Sounds like the attitude http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2016/03/15/2016031501506.html from the chief of KE. He seems to think that flying is easier than driving. Now I've only ever flown a 172, but it's definitely more difficult than driving.

 

[jb747]

I know RT is not the best and most impartial news corporation out there...but if this report is true (https://www.rt.com/news/337128-emirates-pilots-fatigue-scandal/) it could hurt Emirates.
To the pilots here, the article mentions that "pilot flying hours" might not include the 1 hour flight preparation when arriving at the airport, are the working hours guidelines ICAO/IATA based or country specific?

Actually I find that RT can be a very good way of seeing news without the slant that western media place on everything....as can Al Jazeera.

I don't know any specifics about Emirates.

Flight hours are recorded differently to duty hours, and there are limitations on both. There are many obvious ways of fiddling them, and I expect the prevalence of fiddles would depend upon the degree of separation between the airline and the regulator, and also the 'strength' of the regulator.

 

[jb747]

Sounds like the attitude The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition): Daily News from Korea - Korea Air Chief Under Fire for Sneering at Pilot from the chief of KE. He seems to think that flying is easier than driving. Now I've only ever flown a 172, but it's definitely more difficult than driving.

I read that....

 

[por930]

JB,Boris etc, Are these the regs you have to fly by....https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2005B00876

e.g...
900 hours per 365 consecutive days
100 hours per 30 consecutive days
30 hours in 7 consecutive days

As well as the restrictions based on rostered tour of duty hours etc. Or do your companies vary these restrictions to further reduce your hours. I suppose you also have sim time, standby, training all thrown into the mix as well.

Your schedulers must have a mammoth of a job keeping up with all your actual flight hours, late arrivals etc...

 

[Boris spatsky]

JB,Boris etc, Are these the regs you have to fly by....https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2005B00876

e.g...
900 hours per 365 consecutive days
100 hours per 30 consecutive days
30 hours in 7 consecutive days

As well as the restrictions based on rostered tour of duty hours etc. Or do your companies vary these restrictions to further reduce your hours. I suppose you also have sim time, standby, training all thrown into the mix as well.

Your schedulers must have a mammoth of a job keeping up with all your actual flight hours, late arrivals etc...

That's essentially the basis of it but a lot of companies have CASA approved variations to them which can be far more complex than the regs themselves.

I wouldn't want to be a scheduler...

 

[Melburnian1]

Adding to what por930 has said, with most or all international or larger domestic airlines worldwide today, is the software integrated in that for instance if a tech or cabin crew member has to work an extra hour and a half because a flight is 90 minutes late (and the airline had no prior knowledge that this would occur, so it could not change the sign-on times), everything else such as a staff member's hours already worked that week/month/year is automatically adjusted?

And does this then automatically mean that for instance a pilot may no longer be rostered for any type of duty for a particular future day within the week, month, following month or year because of the additional time he or she has unexpectedly had to work and hence continuing with the originally set down roster would contravene the hours of duty specified by regulation?

I'm assuming that there is rarely a case where some poor individual in an office has to manually adjust these rosters...is that too much of an assumption?

 

[Boris spatsky]

Adding to what por930 has said, with most or all international or larger domestic airlines worldwide today, is the software integrated in that for instance if a tech or cabin crew member has to work an extra hour and a half because a flight is 90 minutes late (and the airline had no prior knowledge that this would occur, so it could not change the sign-on times), everything else such as a staff member's hours already worked that week/month/year is automatically adjusted?

And does this then automatically mean that for instance a pilot may no longer be rostered for any type of duty for a particular future day within the week, month, following month or year because of the additional time he or she has unexpectedly had to work and hence continuing with the originally set down roster would contravene the hours of duty specified by regulation?

I'm assuming that there is rarely a case where some poor individual in an office has to manually adjust these rosters...is that too much of an assumption?

In essence, yes, the software (and there are many different products out there) should know all the rostering assumptions, but it still makes mistakes requiring manual intervention, especially after major delays etc - hence my comment. I'll stick to flying, thanks.

 

[mjt57]

That's essentially the basis of it but a lot of companies have CASA approved variations to them which can be far more complex than the regs themselves.

I wouldn't want to be a scheduler...

I work shiftwork, the rosters of which are fairly basic. But even then they have a fair bit of juggling to do. I'd imagine that yours (and JB's) aren't done on a spreadsheet.

Still, imagine the power of life and death that a scheduler, or roster clerk has over you...

 

[por930]

JB, looking on another site, (aeroinside.com) this provides instances of aircraft issues each 24 hours. One I was just looking at was an A380 - Dubai to Manchester(UK) into 23R - 3048M. The crew had to go around at 1300 feet because the FMS advised the runway was too short for landing. After one further attempt, the crew entered a hold at 8000 feet, and I suppose checked their figures? then tried another approach, this time on 23L - 3050M, the FMS at 1100 feet advised the runway wasagain too short. The crew gave up, diverted to London and landed ok on Heathrow's runway 27L - 3660M. After a 2 hour layover at Heathrow, departed again for Manchester and completed a landing at runway 23R on its first approach.

When you input landing details in the FMS while en-route, hopefully you and the FMS would have already determined that Manchester 23R @ 3048M was sufficient when considering all the usual suspects, and the FMS indicated no errors?

Do Flight crews still do the maths in their heads before FMS entry(which I would hope) or does the FMS advise you which of the runways is appropriate considering the conditions, and you accept it? my size aircraft never had anything like an FMS, so I always did my own sums.

Why would the FMS decide to 'change its mind' when so close to landing - three times it seems, when it had plenty of opportunity earlier, with a lot less stress on every one?

If you had already done the maths and confirmed with the Airbus manuals? a runway was suitable, but the FMS disagreed, Can you land anyway, knowing the FMS has lost its way for whatever reason? I suppose, if fuel was an issue, you may have no choice.

I presumed the A380 did a cold start in London, thus rebooting the computer systems, which may have 'fixed' the FMS issue for marginal runways.

 

[Major]

There have been 2 nose gear up landings in the last couple of days

Accident: Jetblue E190 at Nassau on Mar 25th 2016, nose gear up landing

Accident: Bek F100 at Astana on Mar 27th 2016, nose gear did not extend

Is this something you practice in the SIM on a regular basis ?

 

[jb747]

....
I'm assuming that there is rarely a case where some poor individual in an office has to manually adjust these rosters...is that too much of an assumption?

No, that's someone's job. There's a couple of people who do nothing else but 'pattern recovery'...fixing things to recover from downline changes. They're quite imaginative at times.

The system records many things, but no software is 100% inclusive. As I understand it, it will show future issues when duties are placed on your line. So, I may be assigned a standby, but until some form of duty emanates from that standby, it won't tell the scheduler that I'm at 99 hours and 59 minutes for the month.

When the rosters are constructed, the program that does that takes into account everything that has been flown, and what is programmed. It leaves a small buffer on most of the limitations. Even so, it's quite common to find that crews are modified downline to account for changes. The most common fixes are longer slips (which means that someone else had a shorter slip), 2 man crews being adjusted to 3, and sometimes being replaced downline.

 

[jb747]

JB, looking on another site, (aeroinside.com) this provides instances of aircraft issues each 24 hours. One I was just looking at was an A380 - Dubai to Manchester(UK) into 23R - 3048M. The crew had to go around at 1300 feet because the FMS advised the runway was too short for landing. After one further attempt, the crew entered a hold at 8000 feet, and I suppose checked their figures? then tried another approach, this time on 23L - 3050M, the FMS at 1100 feet advised the runway wasagain too short. The crew gave up, diverted to London and landed ok on Heathrow's runway 27L - 3660M. After a 2 hour layover at Heathrow, departed again for Manchester and completed a landing at runway 23R on its first approach.

When you input landing details in the FMS while en-route, hopefully you and the FMS would have already determined that Manchester 23R @ 3048M was sufficient when considering all the usual suspects, and the FMS indicated no errors?

Do Flight crews still do the maths in their heads before FMS entry(which I would hope) or does the FMS advise you which of the runways is appropriate considering the conditions, and you accept it? my size aircraft never had anything like an FMS, so I always did my own sums.

Why would the FMS decide to 'change its mind' when so close to landing - three times it seems, when it had plenty of opportunity earlier, with a lot less stress on every one?

If you had already done the maths and confirmed with the Airbus manuals? a runway was suitable, but the FMS disagreed, Can you land anyway, knowing the FMS has lost its way for whatever reason? I suppose, if fuel was an issue, you may have no choice.

I presumed the A380 did a cold start in London, thus rebooting the computer systems, which may have 'fixed' the FMS issue for marginal runways.

I think that this warning was in relation to a system designed to prevent runway overruns...which we don't have, so I don't know the details.

In our operation, we'll have a look at the landing data on the OIT (the laptops). Using the 'dispatch' module, and the actual conditions, gives a runway length requirement of about 2450 metres. That includes a very large margin...but still gives around 500 metres excess. Using the 'flight' module uses less margin, and gives much more spare. Obviously the runway was perfectly acceptable.

Our FMCs don't get into the act, other than providing the navigation, laterally and vertically. The performance/approach page will have our selections of flap and approach speed, and will also include the ATIS data. It doesn't do any runway length calculations.

I presume that the overrun system has the ability to dynamically monitor the performance...so that it can take into account excess airspeed, or adverse wind. Otherwise it would have little value.

As for the response..the first go around would be in accordance with the SOP. After that, having looked at the OIT again, and being aware that it's a normal runway used every day...I'd land and u/s the system. I expect that when I'm replaced by a robot, that it will continue to go around until the fuel state becomes an emergency, at which point that would leap to the top of the priority list and allow a landing.

 

[jb747]

There have been 2 nose gear up landings in the last couple of days

Accident: Jetblue E190 at Nassau on Mar 25th 2016, nose gear up landing

Accident: Bek F100 at Astana on Mar 27th 2016, nose gear did not extend

Is this something you practice in the SIM on a regular basis ?

We don't practice it at all. We do look at alternate gear extension, but there isn't a great deal of value in practicing such a landing. Firstly the sims almost certainly won't reflect it all that accurately. Secondly, apart from a rather lower seat position, there isn't much to see/do that is different to normal. You land normally. You fly the nose to the ground whilst you still have elevator control. You don't want to try to keep the nose up...you'll run out of elevator, and it will fall. Once on the ground, rudder and differential braking will work normally.

 

[Conrad_S]

Thanks all, now to the captains:
is it ok to go when you gotta go while set belt sign is on and the plane is bout to land?

I was on a Dash 8 taxiing after landing at Sydney that made a sudden stop (emergency?) to avoid a catering truck that crossed in front near t3. I was amazed how quickly the plane stopped. I'd reckon that an unbelted passenger would have been thrown against the seat in front.