Ask The Pilot

[p--and--t]

Question for JB:
When the QF30 incident occured, how long did it take to descend to 10,000'? I ask as I follow a guy on YouTube. He's a 744 cargo driver and posted a tick tock video recently of influenzas spouting stuff about airline safety, including their "knowledge" of how cabin oxy masks work and other conspiricy nutjob theories.

Influenzas must be mutating to more intelligent forms?

 

[MooTime]

Influenzas must be mutating to more intelligent forms?

Using the word 'intelligent' loosely right!

I'm not bothering watching the video, grass grow kinder of theory.

 

[Saab34]

AV, after a recent flight this got me thinking. In a CTAF, say your on final approach, if traffic ahead just landed is still on the runway, at what point do you just give the approach away? Is there a certain decision height, in that they haven’t vacated yet (be it they are slow to vacate or spacing was just tight)

I ask this, as on a recent flight, 737, we passed over the airport fence, the other aircraft was a BizJet, just cleared the holding point at that time, they missed the exit originally it appears and needed then backtrack causing the spacing to get tighter. Seemed a bit close.

 

[PineappleSkip]

I'm not bothering watching the video, grass grow kinder of theory.

It’s worth watching the first minute and a half just to see how idiotic the things are that are being proposed. The video doesn’t get any wackier than the conspiracy theory about why people are told to brace for impact, which is at the very beginning. It leaves you wondering about the future of the human race.

 

[p--and--t]

It leaves you wondering about the future of the human race.

It crosses my mind several times per every week

 

[p--and--t]

Using the word 'intelligent' loosely right!

I was merely tongue-in-cheek reflecting on “Influenza” learning how to converse (not relating to the content of the video)

Perhaps a bit too subtle for a text based post. Perhaps belongs in the grammar thread

 

[jb747]

Question for JB:
When the QF30 incident occured, how long did it take to descend to 10,000'? I ask as I follow a guy on YouTube. He's a 744 cargo driver and posted a tick tock video recently of influenzas spouting stuff about airline safety, including their "knowledge" of how cabin oxy masks work and other conspiricy nutjob theories.

74gear's videos are quite good. Nice to see he's picked up a promotion too. One minor point in his video though...not every aircraft uses chemical generators for passenger oxygen. Both the 747 and A380 use bottles, though they are very large and not overhead. The 787 uses some sort of hybrid system.

The influencers are morons. No other way to describe them.

QF30 took about 6 minutes to get down. It's worth noting that we could have gotten it down a bit faster, by either slowing up at the top of the descent and taking the gear down, or by simply flying faster. We limited our speed to about 320 kias. But we did so for the same reason we didn't use the gear down option. There was obviously some level of structural damage, and we didn't want to test it any more than we were forced to.

 

[mjt57]

QF30 took about 6 minutes to get down.

Thanks, so not long at all.

Still, it must've been a tense 6 mins for some. Even longer for others before setting foot on terra firma, I guess.

 

[jb747]

Thanks, so not long at all.

Still, it must've been a tense 6 mins for some. Even longer for others before setting foot on terra firma, I guess.

One of the proofs for Einstein. Time is relative. When you're down the back with nothing to do but worry, 6 minutes seems like hours. When up the front and busy, it seems to last seconds.

 

[AviatorInsight]

AV, after a recent flight this got me thinking. In a CTAF, say your on final approach, if traffic ahead just landed is still on the runway, at what point do you just give the approach away? Is there a certain decision height, in that they haven’t vacated yet (be it they are slow to vacate or spacing was just tight)

I ask this, as on a recent flight, 737, we passed over the airport fence, the other aircraft was a BizJet, just cleared the holding point at that time, they missed the exit originally it appears and needed then backtrack causing the spacing to get tighter. Seemed a bit close.

No decision height, but a landmark for class G airspace. The rules just say the preceding aircraft needs to be clear of the runway before the following aircraft crosses the threshold.

So, yes it was close but still ok to land as crossing the fence is before the threshold and the bizjet had cleared the holding point by the time they got to the threshold.

 

[Saab34]

I note the Bonza 737 stuck in MKY has an apparent broken weather radar. Is this a common issue? What sort of things would happen to make it work again?

 

[AviatorInsight]

I note the Bonza 737 stuck in MKY has an apparent broken weather radar. Is this a common issue? What sort of things would happen to make it work again?

Not common, but it happens. If the actual radar itself is broken, then the flight can’t depart if there is any potential hazardous conditions along the route. In other words, wait for a clear day with no storms and/or rain.

As for things to make it work again? That would be the function of an engineer.

 

[jb747]

I note the Bonza 737 stuck in MKY has an apparent broken weather radar. Is this a common issue? What sort of things would happen to make it work again?

I have never had the actual radar dish/plate or its drive fail. As far as I know, most airliners have duplicated systems, other than the antennae, so a failure of one system still leaves you with the other. Loss of both is certainly possible, but rare, and again, I never came across it. The fix would be an engineer hitting it with a hammer, and then writing "ground tested, serviceable" into the log.

 

[AviatorInsight]

As far as I know, most airliners have duplicated systems, other than the antennae, so a failure of one system still leaves you with the other.

Haha we’re talking about a 737 here. Redundancy is not a thing apparently. Most models only have one radar antennae.

Having said that, Silk Air must’ve paid extra because all of those frames have duplicate systems. We will choose the L or R depending on who is flying when operating a Silk Air aircraft.

Every other aircraft it is on/off.

 

[Saab34]

Any reason why your companies don’t spend for the extras/add-ons in the coughpit like Silkair has, or other foreign operators have done?

 

[D747]

Any reason why your companies don’t spend for the extras/add-ons in the coughpit like Silkair has, or other foreign operators have done?

$$$

 

[jb747]

Haha we’re talking about a 737 here. Redundancy is not a thing apparently. Most models only have one radar antennae.

Having said that, Silk Air must’ve paid extra because all of those frames have duplicate systems. We will choose the L or R depending on who is flying when operating a Silk Air aircraft.

Every other aircraft it is on/off.

Yes, but it's still only one antennae. Everything downstream is duplicated, but not at the antennae. Even on the 380.

 

[mjt57]

The fix would be an engineer hitting it with a hammer, and then writing "ground tested, serviceable" into the log.

Ah, a Standard Calibrated Thump...

 

[FrustratedQP]

My flight was struck by lightning climbing out of OOL a couple of days ago. What inflight procedures are undertaken to ensure that the aircraft remains serviceable and what checks are required after the aircraft lands?

 

[AviatorInsight]

My flight was struck by lightning climbing out of OOL a couple of days ago. What inflight procedures are undertaken to ensure that the aircraft remains serviceable and what checks are required after the aircraft lands?

Just a serviceability check of all the radios and navigation equipment. We’ll then advise ATC and the company on arrival to get an engineer to look it over after landing.