Ask The Pilot

[jb747]

We often need inputs in multiple planes simultaneously. I cannot imagine how you'd possibly get a flare, crosswind yaw removal, and simultaneous roll control in without putting in unwanted inputs into the other channels. Some people can't do it now.

 

[mjt57]

No aircraft. Spacecraft perhaps....

It would be a control nightmare keeping your commands in the correct plane.

Some of the elevated work platforms (boom lifts) that we use at work are like that. We wonder what they (the designers for the equipment) were thinking, when we 50 feet up and trying to manoeuvre the bucket...

 

[docjames]

Where pilots do the same leg over and over (thinking eg SYD/BNE/MEL-LAX for VA’s 777 fleet, or MEL-SIN/LAX from QF’s Melbourne base), is this good in terms of familiarity with a route, it’s issues, airways etc, or does that actually increase risk (from complacency mostly I suppose, or “expectation bias”)?

 

[jb747]

Where pilots do the same leg over and over (thinking eg SYD/BNE/MEL-LAX for VA’s 777 fleet, or MEL-SIN/LAX from QF’s Melbourne base), is this good in terms of familiarity with a route, it’s issues, airways etc, or does that actually increase risk (from complacency mostly I suppose, or “expectation bias”)?

Like everything...there is too much of a good thing.

By the time you reach the pointy end of an airliner, it shouldn't take too much time to become familiar with a route. Up to about a dozen flights, you're still learning new things about a route. After that it becomes familiar. And then mundane. I'm not sure what comes after that.

From a safety perspective, a few flights are good. Too many, and I don't know where the cutoff is, and you're really operating on automatic. Even though I started the conversation by saying that repeating some of the longer flights was boring, it's much more of an issue with the short haul operations. When I was flying the 767, I recall one sequence of Melbourne - Sydney returns that I did 26 times in a row. I actually wrote out a little list of things that had to be ticked off (i.e. landing clearances) because I could distinctly recall getting a clearance...but it was a previous sector.

So, too many Mebourne LAs is boring, but not really a safety issue...too many flights on the monorail (as the east coast flying is described) is probably dangerous.

 

[AviatorInsight]

Where pilots do the same leg over and over (thinking eg SYD/BNE/MEL-LAX for VA’s 777 fleet, or MEL-SIN/LAX from QF’s Melbourne base), is this good in terms of familiarity with a route, it’s issues, airways etc, or does that actually increase risk (from complacency mostly I suppose, or “expectation bias”)?

I definitely got bored going to LA. Granted I was sitting in the back and not doing much anyway, but 100nm off the coast of Australia and you're on datalink until about 100nm off the west coast of the US. I got excited when flying close to HNL and we got told to contact an actual frequency. That and also entering US airspace contacting SFO radio on HF.

Having said that, while we were familiar with the route etc, I don't think it ever increased any risk per se as every flight is different in some way shape or form and there were 4 sets of eyes looking for threats.

On the monorail routes there's always track shortening, max speed, min speed, holding, high levels, lower levels, weather, traffic, and that's sometimes on the one sector! That usually keeps us occupied. My goal after training was to be able to get up to cruising altitude on a LST-MEL sector, have some sort of meal and still have everything done by top of descent. Getting familiar with what needs to be done doesn't take away any safety factor, it's more about efficiency at that stage.

 

[jb747]

My goal after training was to be able to get up to cruising altitude on a LST-MEL sector, have some sort of meal and still have everything done by top of descent. Getting familiar with what needs to be done doesn't take away any safety factor, it's more about efficiency at that stage.

I think my best effort was managing a cup of tea on a London Manchester sector...which was under 20 minutes flight time.

 

[ChrisGibbs]

Showing my age here but I remember back in 74 as a kid traveling to the UK on QF's Kangaroo Route. A variant of the milk run on the 747-2xx was SYD-SIN-KUL-BAH-CIA (Rome) -LHR and returned LHR-AMS-BAH-SIN-SYD. I would imagine the SIN-KUL (184mi) and LHR-AMS (230mi) sectors were been reasonably busy. I recall a couple of the QF Captains on those sectors included Captain Quinn and Henderson - obviously long gone now. On these sectors they had crew changes in each of Bahrain and Singapore. When QF was doing the LHR-MAN sectors were they the same crew who did the SIN-LHR sectors and base the tech crew in MAN or did a new crew do the LHRMAN-LHR sectors?

The shortest sector I've been on is TLV-AMM (67mi) on Royal Jordanian.

 

[jb747]

Showing my age here but I remember back in 74 as a kid traveling to the UK on QF's Kangaroo Route. A variant of the milk run on the 747-2xx was SYD-SIN-KUL-BAH-CIA (Rome) -LHR and returned LHR-AMS-BAH-SIN-SYD. I would imagine the SIN-KUL (184mi) and LHR-AMS (230mi) sectors were been reasonably busy. I recall a couple of the QF Captains on those sectors included Captain Quinn and Henderson - obviously long gone now. On these sectors they had crew changes in each of Bahrain and Singapore. When QF was doing the LHR-MAN sectors were they the same crew who did the SIN-LHR sectors and base the tech crew in MAN or did a new crew do the LHRMAN-LHR sectors?

If the crew had come from Bahrain, then they'd continue to Manchester. When the sectors were from Singapore, they'd get off in London, but then do a shuttle to Manchester a day or so later.

The shortest sector I've been on is TLV-AMM (67mi) on Royal Jordanian.

London Manchester was my shortest sector for managing a cup of tea in the middle. When I was doing FO training (as an SO), my very first sector was Tullamarine to Avalon, which is 28nm. And many years later, I took a 747 from Heathrow to Stansted...37 or so nm.

 

[JessicaTam]

[mod hat]
A reminder that this is the 'Ask the pilot' thread, not the 'shortest flight I have flown' thread.
[/mod hat]

 

[D747]

Do any of the pilots remember an RPT route BNE-OOL? It might have been around the mid 80s on either TAA or Ansett?

 

[AviatorInsight]

Do any of the pilots remember an RPT route BNE-OOL? It might have been around the mid 80s on either TAA or Ansett?

Was definitely before my time, but FOs had to do it as part of the last Sim for command development. They basically told the captains to let us run it. It was a good exercise.

 

[jb747]

Short sectors aren't common in large aircraft, but they are mostly thrown up after diversions, when you can have both unfamiliar airports, and generally poor weather thrown into the mix as well. For that reason, they are very common sim scenarios. Many a 380 set up starts with the phase, you've diverted to....

 

[Quickstatus]

I assume you have been operated to many more airports in the SIm than in reality.
And occasionally pilots have to land at an airport they have never operated to before.
How do you prepare for such an event?

 

[jb747]

I assume you have been operated to many more airports in the SIm than in reality.
And occasionally pilots have to land at an airport they have never operated to before.
How do you prepare for such an event?

It's really not that hard, unless the airport has specific issues that need to be looked at. HK, especially the old one, and JFK come to mind. Otherwise, we'll have a look at any notes the company has made up (if any). The Jeppesen charts cover pretty well all we really need in most cases. I did the Dallas sim about 18 months after I'd been there...and after I'd left the base that did it anyway.

So, I actually it's the other way around....I've been to many more real airports than I have simulated ones.

 

[Flashback]

It's really not that hard, unless the airport has specific issues that need to be looked at. HK, especially the old one, and JFK come to mind. Otherwise, we'll have a look at any notes the company has made up (if any). The Jeppesen charts cover pretty well all we really need in most cases. I did the Dallas sim about 18 months after I'd been there...and after I'd left the base that did it anyway.

So, I actually it's the other way around....I've been to many more real airports than I have simulated ones.

I know the issues with the old HKG one, what issues does JFK have?

 

[jb747]

I know the issues with the old HKG one, what issues does JFK have?

Actually the particular issue that was high on their list was very similar to HK. The Carnarsie approach involved a late turn to finals. It's what EK got very wrong a couple of years ago.

Beyond that, but not something for the sim, the controllers have more attitude than anywhere else I've been.

 

[defurax]

I have a question about fuel. I was recently on a flight from Montreal to JFK and the incoming aircraft had to perform a go around from a very low altitude (it was snowing a lot, so I guess the visibility can change quickly). After boarding, the captain mentioned they would need to take some more fuel because of extra taxi to the deicing bay and hold at JFK (I guess these small planes don't always refuel at every stop). The Captain then said he needed to wait for dispatch to approve the fuel. I was under the impression that the Captain decides how much fuel they require for the flight, why would dispatch be involved in that decision? Or was it simply about getting dispatch to produce some paperwork?

 

[jb747]

I have a question about fuel. I was recently on a flight from Montreal to JFK and the incoming aircraft had to perform a go around from a very low altitude (it was snowing a lot, so I guess the visibility can change quickly). After boarding, the captain mentioned they would need to take some more fuel because of extra taxi to the deicing bay and hold at JFK (I guess these small planes don't always refuel at every stop). The Captain then said he needed to wait for dispatch to approve the fuel. I was under the impression that the Captain decides how much fuel they require for the flight, why would dispatch be involved in that decision? Or was it simply about getting dispatch to produce some paperwork?

The Captain in QF decides on the fuel, and dispatch have no say at all. They'll simply produce the flight plan as instructed. Not all airlines work that way. I have no idea of the percentage, but many fuel loads are decided by people remote from the operation. As far as I am concerned, it's an unsafe operation, but, thankfully, I didn't have to work under it.

The way it actually functions is that dispatch will produce a minimum fuel flight plan. That’s presented to the Captain, who can decide to go with it, or to add whatever extra fuel he deems necessary. The fuel is ordered by the Captain. Over a few tonnes, you might get the plan redone...though I rarely bothered.

On flights that will take a lot of fuel, and for which it takes a long time to load that fuel, engineering may have some standing loadings that they’ll fuel the aircraft too, before the actual order appears. That load is normally 20-30 tonnes short of the real order, but it does save a lot of time.

 

[RSD]

Why do some planes have two tails instead of one? (F14, F15, F18 etc.)

And why would an aircraft designer move a horizontal stabiliser to the top of the tail instead of the more normal location?

 

[jb747]

Why do some planes have two tails instead of one? (F14, F15, F18 etc.)

Like everything in aviation, there are always competing priorities when an aircraft is being designed. Twin tails have some structural advantages, as well as being lower for the same cross sectional area (a plus on aircraft carriers). But, the reason that sticks in my head, from Pilots’ Course aerodynamics, relates to the coefficient of lift across mach numbers. As an aircraft increases speed, the CL remains about the same up until about mach .9. Then it decreases rapidly. Once the aircraft gets past mach 1, the CL increases again, but only to about 60% of its original value. The upshot of that is that the tail is less effective, and so the aircraft could be directionally unstable at higher mach numbers. Some SR71s took that to an extreme, by having a third fin, that folded down at high speeds.

And why would an aircraft designer move a horizontal stabiliser to the top of the tail instead of the more normal location?

Basically because they want the space where it is normally for something else. Generally engines.