Ask The Pilot

[Sprucegoose]

I have a family member who is right seat EK 777 and he assures me they shut down one engine on taxi to save fuel.

Meloz

Thats the accountants again. Didn't Australian try this at one stage in the 80's ?

 

[The Rok]

I think you are referring to the Air Austral (?) flight from Sydney to Mauritius hitting Perth around 3. The missus thought it was a plane exploding!

There is some nut on YouTube with a truckload of clips about these "chemtrails" and how QF are evil...

Yes, that would be the one i was referring to.

 

[JohnM]

Yes, that would be the one i was referring to.

It was a particularly spectacular contrail over Perth yesterday. There was no cloud and there mustn't have been a lot of wind up there as it dispersed very slowly. It's not common to see contrails over Perth as I guess there aren't a lot of flights that pass above Perth at high altitude. We were wondering about the origin of it, so good to have the source identified.

 

[markis10]

It was a particularly spectacular contrail over Perth yesterday. There was no cloud and there mustn't have been a lot of wind up there as it dispersed very slowly. It's not common to see contrails over Perth as I guess there aren't a lot of flights that pass above Perth at high altitude. We were wondering about the origin of it, so good to have the source identified.

Flightradar24 has a facility where you can have a look back for up to two weeks on movements:

 

[jukebox333]

It was a particularly spectacular contrail over Perth yesterday. There was no cloud and there mustn't have been a lot of wind up there as it dispersed very slowly. It's not common to see contrails over Perth as I guess there aren't a lot of flights that pass above Perth at high altitude. We were wondering about the origin of it, so good to have the source identified.

Yes, it was unusually prominent yesterday, wasn't it? I've seen it once or twice before, but for whatever reason - cloudless sky, hot day, whatever - it made for a very spectacular sight.

As an aside, I seem to recall looking it up and seeing that those flights to Reunion are not ridiculously expensive... from Sydney. And if you Google the destination, the scenery looks intriguing!

 

[JohnM]

Cheers, markis10.

 

[SenZubEanS]

Last time I was marshalled was when I delivered a 380 to Frankfurt a few months ago.

Hey JB. Could you go into further information on this? Were you doing a delivery for maintenance? If so, what was the procedure there? did you fly it from SIN to FRA or LHR to FRA?
Any other info would be interesting.

Thanks a bunch for the great vids you have posted in the last few weeks. I hadn't checked this thread for a little while and have just spent a decent hunk of time catching up reading and having you fly me around the world on my 2nd monitor.

While watching the videos I wondered if the headsets used stay with the aircraft or if you have your own headset that you use when you are flying?

Also in regards to you being requested to take the 10 back a day ahead of schedule, do you have much option there to refuse or is it asked that you will do it but in a fashion where by you are more being told than asked?
Also presuming you are replacing a pilot who was set to fly back from LHR, and you would then be taking his slot, why would they not have you fly from SIN to MEL or SYD?

 

[markis10]

Hey JB. Could you go into further information on this? Were you doing a delivery for maintenance? If so, what was the procedure there? did you fly it from SIN to FRA or LHR to FRA?
Any other info would be interesting.

I dont want to steal JB747s thunder (it was probably a different ferry flight) but QF source often have interesting bits of info on aircraft movements such as 747s going to china for Maintenance etc:

17th November 2011 - A380 Heathrow - Frankfurt Maintenance Swap.

Airbus A380 VH-OQF arrived into London Heathrow this morning as QF9 from Melbourne and Singapore then positioned to Frankfurt as QF6023 where it will undergo a D Check at Lufthansa Technik.
Sister VH-OQE, which has been under D Check at Frankfurt since 26 October, then ferried Frankfurt - London Heathrow as QF6024 in order to re-enter traffic as QF10 to Singapore and Melbourne this evening.

QANTAS News & Information November 2011

 

[jb747]

Hey JB. Could you go into further information on this? Were you doing a delivery for maintenance? If so, what was the procedure there? did you fly it from SIN to FRA or LHR to FRA?

It was the swap mentioned by Markis. Take one from London, and bring the other jet back a few hours later. It wasn't planned to be done by us when we left Oz. We found out a day or so beforehand.

Procedures. Nothing out of the ordinary really. Fly to Frankfurt. FO and I had both been there plenty of times in the 747. The company provided a briefing sheet with likely taxi routes and parking spots. ATC gave us a 'follow me' car on arrival. QF engineers were present, so the handover and takeover of the aircraft was exactly as we do normally. Paperwork for the return flight was delivered by the QF agents who normally handle the QF5. Probably the strangest part of it all was leaving London at 320 tonnes, instead of the normal 550.

While watching the videos I wondered if the headsets used stay with the aircraft or if you have your own headset that you use when you are flying?

All of the bits and pieces belong to the aircraft. I've never seen anyone use their own headset.

Also in regards to you being requested to take the 10 back a day ahead of schedule, do you have much option there to refuse or is it asked that you will do it but in a fashion where by you are more being told than asked?

No, they don't ask....but as they've affected the time that is intended to allow you to sort out sleep, both post and prior to a flight, I can most certainly refuse it. It probably suits me to do it anyway, so that's unlikely. Having said that, I won't do the flight on the day if I don't feel up to it...there is no discussion space there.

Also presuming you are replacing a pilot who was set to fly back from LHR, and you would then be taking his slot, why would they not have you fly from SIN to MEL or SYD?

Legs between Oz and Singapore are often used for our annual route checks, so it's likely that paxing the last sector was on the original plan.

 

[harvyk]

Sorry to repost, but I think this one was missed...

When a flight plan is entered into the FMC, are all waypoints along the way entered in, or are only ones which have a heading change? Also I believe most way points have a 5 letter name? Are there any regions on earth (eg lower south pacific between here and south america) which does not have them? If so how does one fly through those areas? would they simply get the plane to fly to the next waypoint even if it's many thousands of km's away? or would the plane be instructed to fly to certain coordinates.

 

[jb747]

When a flight plan is entered into the FMC, are all waypoints along the way entered in, or are only ones which have a heading change?

The flight plans are normally uplinked, so we don't manually enter them. And if you do, you would normally enter the airway designation (i.e. A467). In either case, all of the waypoints go in.

Also I believe most way points have a 5 letter name?

Yep. But there are also plenty of 3 letter ones too...when the waypoint is at a navigation beacon.

Are there any regions on earth (eg lower south pacific between here and south america) which does not have them?

I've not flown over the poles, so I can't say for sure. I doubt that there's very much down south, but as there's a lot of flights up north, I'd expect some form of airway structure.

If so how does one fly through those areas? would they simply get the plane to fly to the next waypoint even if it's many thousands of km's away? or would the plane be instructed to fly to certain coordinates.

Latitude and longitude are regularly used for waypoints. We track to them across Oz, and also in the mid Pacific. They aren't necessarily tied to any airways, we simply 'free track' between them. That's something that has appeared relatively recently...presumably as the ATC computing power has increased to the point of being able to handle such tracking.

Historically, waypoints would be a maximum of 30 to 60 minutes apart, and would have been position reports. With the advent of data links, actual waypoints are much less important, as ATC are tracking you at all times.

 

[harvyk]

When talking about waypoints, do you say out each letter? Eg I'm pretty sure there is a waypoint called SANTA out there, so would you say the word "santa" when talking about it with ATC \ other pilots or would you break it down to it's letters and say S A N T A or would you break it down to the phonetic alphabet eg Sierra Alpha November Tango Alpha?

 

[markis10]

A waypoint is a navigational location that can be anywhere at anytime and called anything, its actually a reporting point that we are talking about, which is a specific location at which an aircrafts position can be ascertained for the purposes of procedual control.

 

[jb747]

When talking about waypoints, do you say out each letter? Eg I'm pretty sure there is a waypoint called SANTA out there, so would you say the word "santa" when talking about it with ATC \ other pilots or would you break it down to it's letters and say S A N T A or would you break it down to the phonetic alphabet eg Sierra Alpha November Tango Alpha?

Normally they are called whatever the 'word' is. But, if people can't understand that, then it becomes the letters.

I recall leaving LA and being cleared to track direct to 'rattlesnake'. I had no idea where that was, but ATC quickly came back with RSK (or whatever the FMC designator was) when asked.

 

[oz74]

Thanks alot jb for all the time that you put into answering the questions.

It's awsome to have a someone who can "really" answer our questions.

 

[jb747]

A few pages back there was a discussion about the fuel loadings used on aircraft like the RAAF F18s. I had a chat to an ex F18 test pilot last night, and he said that he couldn't recall ever taking off with other than full internal fuel. That's what I expected.

 

[Tortuga]

What system do you use to calculate altitude? My background is surveying so I am interested to know if you use GPS, and if so which system, geoid and processing method etc.

I would also like to give a thumbs up to the Qantas pilots I had when I flew EZE>SYD on Wednesday. The first officer told us what we would see out the windows and made some turns to ensure we got some nice views of the volcanos near Bariloche. When we were doing racetracks above Sydney while waiting for a spot to open up he told us to look out the window because there was another Qantas 747 doing racetracks about 1000ft above us if I remember correctly, very cool to see and informative !!

 

[straitman]

What system do you use to calculate altitude? My background is surveying so I am interested to know if you use GPS, and if so which system, geoid and processing method etc.

I would also like to give a thumbs up to the Qantas pilots I had when I flew EZE>SYD on Wednesday. The first officer told us what we would see out the windows and made some turns to ensure we got some nice views of the volcanos near Bariloche. When we were doing racetracks above Sydney while waiting for a spot to open up he told us to look out the window because there was another Qantas 747 doing racetracks about 1000ft above us if I remember correctly, very cool to see and informative !!

Altitude is always by reading of the pressure altimeter. Above transition altitude the altimeter is set at 1013 hPa and the increments are in flight levels. i.e. FL310 is a reading of 31,000 ft on the PA. Below transition altitude the altimeter is set to QNH which is the barometric pressure at any location adjusted to sea level.

 

[jb747]

What system do you use to calculate altitude? My background is surveying so I am interested to know if you use GPS, and if so which system, geoid and processing method etc.

Just adding to Straitman's answer...

We also have radar altimeters, which are used for some low visibility approaches, and by the aircraft to control some flight control mode changes. It's only displayed below 2,500 feet. The A380 also has access to GPS altitude, but it's only used in an emergency mode, in which we've lost all of the air data sources, and fly using GPS altitude and angle of attack (i.e. no airspeed).

 

[The Rok]

When listening to movies and documentaries on discovery you quite regularly hear the term from military personnel "scramble an F16"

Where does the term "scramble" come from? Does it relate to eggs, and if so can you have a "hard boiled" F16 or a "soft fried" B52?

The latter is in jest but serious about the "scramble"