Ask The Pilot

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Dannyism said:
Thank you for the reply. If a positive test for drugs or alcohol was determined to be correct, would your career be over? This was the source of concern for the friend in the story.
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https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp...cial-flight-loses-appeal-20160411-go3fvh.html

Career would probably be over with the said employer but the above Pilot is 'apparently' still a Pilot with another operator.

A very public Company like Airlines just wouldn't want to wear any bad publicity around it, so its guaranteed job loss in most cases. Just look at these AFL players who get busted speeding or drinking. Sponsors usually pull the pin almost immediately, makes them look bad if they hang on.
 
harvyk said:
Follow up question then for those whom fly 747's (and I'd imagine other types, although I'm not familiar with other flight decks). In the simulator I'm building, it has a standard altitude button for flying over FL180. Pressing the button below FL180 will switch to standard mode, but the standard mode wording will be in yellow until above FL180. When setting the altimeter manually, below FL180 the numbers will be in green, but above FL180 they will be in yellow. I'm guessing yellow is simply a warning to state you're not in the right mode.

Is this how an actual jumbo shows colours? Could this functionality be different depending on the operator?
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The transition altitude for the departure and arrival airports are set in the FMC. The 'standard mode' that you're talking about, knows from there what it should reference. So if out of Europe the transition altitude was 7000, climbing through 7000 you'd select STD and it'll display as STD in green. The functionality doesn't change between operators.
 
And a change to the roster. I've just swapped a trip with another pilot, as it fits in better with a sim.

I was doing:
09/04 MEL-DXB 9
13/04 DXB-LHR 1
15/04 LHR-DXB 10
17/04 DXB-MEL 10

And now it will be:
08/04 MEL-DXB 9
12/04 DXB-LHR 1
14/04 LHR-DXB 10
16/04 DXB-MEL 10

So, same trip, just a day earlier.
 
jb747 said:
And a change to the roster. I've just swapped a trip with another pilot, as it fits in better with a sim.

I was doing:
09/04 MEL-DXB 9
13/04 DXB-LHR 1
15/04 LHR-DXB 10
17/04 DXB-MEL 10

And now it will be:
08/04 MEL-DXB 9
12/04 DXB-LHR 1
14/04 LHR-DXB 10
16/04 DXB-MEL 10

So, same trip, just a day earlier.
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How easy is it to do shift swaps? Assuming they don't take you over hours, of course.
 
JessicaTam said:
How easy is it to do shift swaps? Assuming they don't take you over hours, of course.
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Varies a bit. For a swap of an identical trip and no hours issues, it's just a case of both of us filling out an online form. If we are organised, and send the form at about the same time, it will generally be actioned within 24 hours.

If we want to swap part of a trip, it gets harder. There is an industrial agreement in place that concerns swaps of the last sector (which generally happens to get commuters home, but can also have the effect of saving the company some accommodation costs). It requires a couple of emails.

There is no agreement with regard to swapping first sectors (again something the commuters may want) and you can be at the whim of the individual scheduler.

In this instance, I was asked to swap by another Captain for a trip a couple of days later. I couldn't do that because it interfered with a sim. Going earlier ties in with the first of the two sims, and I initiated the swap. But, I've just sent the first guy an SMS, as the trip he wanted is now owned by someone else, and who knows, he may be able to get that swap to work now.
 
significant fire no evacuation?. No fuel leak checklist but relying on their own assumptions?. I wonder what happened to the airframe.

Could have gone the way of the BA engine fire that quickly destroyed the aircraft.

Would there be ETOPS ramifications if the engine was switched off inflight rather than powered to idle?
 
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Quickstatus said:
significant fire no evacuation?. No fuel leak checklist but relying on their own assumptions?. I wonder what happened to the airframe.
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I think they wanted there to be no leak, so the answer was pre loaded. I'm staggered that they would have considered continuing the flight to the original destination.

Would there be ETOPS ramifications if the engine was switched off inflight rather than powered to idle?
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Yes, but I'm not sure whether the entire process was tainted by that. If they had shut the engine down, then they really should have gone to Bangkok. Given the secondary indications (cabin atmosphere being tainted), there's more than enough information to have shut it down. Checklists still require some element of common sense. Of course the problem with common sense is that it isn't common.

The combination of a suspected fuel issue, and oil issues, leads pretty well straight to the fuel/oil heat exchangers, with one contaminating the other. There are multiple risk factors, and I would consider any combination of the two to constitute 'confirmation'.
 
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It does sound like they wanted the whole mission to be just a hiccup which took them into an alternative reality. The last decision evac or stairs was just a symptom of an inability to come out of that universe.

Pictures showed the most of the wing destroyed. There is no indication whether this was a hull loss?

Re fuel oil heat exchangers - presumably fuel would cool to say -40C inflight ?. What is the temperature of the fuel before combustion? Do some of the warmed fuel recirculate back into the tanks?
 
JB given that you've flown a couple of QF planes after major incidents, and having some possibility of flying on that SQ bird in a few week's time to LHR, I'm assuming that, after whatever repairs they did to it, the plane would be in 'good as new' (or close) condition? Wouldn't fancy mentioning to SWMBO that there's a chance we're flying on a rebirthed plane.
 
andmiz said:
The transition altitude for the departure and arrival airports are set in the FMC. The 'standard mode' that you're talking about, knows from there what it should reference. So if out of Europe the transition altitude was 7000, climbing through 7000 you'd select STD and it'll display as STD in green. The functionality doesn't change between operators.
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Hi AndMiz,

Thanks for this, I went through the FMC, and sure enough there was the option for transition altitude, it's American designed software, so of course all the defaults are for US.
Learn something new every day :cool:

Thanks
 
Pictures showed the most of the wing destroyed. There is no indication whether this was a hull loss?
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I'm sure it was nowhere near being a loss. I thought the BA one in Las Vegas might end up as one, as the uncontained failure had done more damage, and because the aircraft was appreciably older. As it turned out, a lick of paint and good as new.

Re fuel oil heat exchangers - presumably fuel would cool to say -40C inflight ?. What is the temperature of the fuel before combustion? Do some of the warmed fuel recirculate back into the tanks?
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-40ºC is the freezing point of some fuels. In the main tanks, there is a lot of thermal mass, and it rarely gets below about -25º. Outer tanks are more of an issue, as they don't hold as much. If it becomes a problem you may need to move it inboard, or perhaps descend to warmer air. Warmed fuel is not returned to the tanks.

From the 747 manual:
Engine oil heats the fuel as it flows through the fuel/oil heat exchanger. A fuel filter removes contaminants. The second stage engine fuel pump adds final pressure to the fuel.The fuel metering unit adjusts fuel flow to meet thrust requirements. The fuel then flows through the engine fuel valve. The fuel is additionally heated by the high pressure fuel/oil heat exchanger before distribution to the engine.
 
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petercr said:
JB given that you've flown a couple of QF planes after major incidents, and having some possibility of flying on that SQ bird in a few week's time to LHR, I'm assuming that, after whatever repairs they did to it, the plane would be in 'good as new' (or close) condition? Wouldn't fancy mentioning to SWMBO that there's a chance we're flying on a rebirthed plane.
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Those aircraft that I've flown after incidents were well and truly repaired to 'as new'. New parts were installed at manufacturing junctions. I would never have even thought of it, but it's probably best not to tell the significant other anything.
 

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