Ask a Pilot anything....
Discussion
4x4Tyke said:
What is the strangest, funniest and scariest moments you've experienced on the job?
Strangest : Arguing with a customs official about his desire to unload our cargo in the middle of winter with the temp at -5 whilst on a refuelling stop. The cargo was 100,000 day old chickens who wouldn’t have survived the ordeal.Scariest : A hostie telling me she was late and not for a flight...
Funniest : The landing competitions we used to have at STN or Eindhoven. Again all in the days before Flight Data Monitoring when we could basically get away with murder...
Do all you pilot types talk in three letter code?
Cringe when people on here call passengers, PAX.
My dream as a child was to be a pilot. My best mate at school went on to fly commercially.
I was told I couldn't ever learn as I'm colourblind. Was I mugged off or can colourblind people fly?
I've had a go privately and it wad bloody brilliant. Didnt mention the old eyes!
Cringe when people on here call passengers, PAX.
My dream as a child was to be a pilot. My best mate at school went on to fly commercially.
I was told I couldn't ever learn as I'm colourblind. Was I mugged off or can colourblind people fly?
I've had a go privately and it wad bloody brilliant. Didnt mention the old eyes!
IforB said:
Strangest : Arguing with a customs official about his desire to unload our cargo in the middle of winter with the temp at -5 whilst on a refuelling stop. The cargo was 100,000 day old chickens who wouldn’t have survived the ordeal.
Scariest : A hostie telling me she was late and not for a flight...
Funniest : The landing competitions we used to have at STN or Eindhoven. Again all in the days before Flight Data Monitoring when we could basically get away with murder...
Thats some mighty old chickens you had there.Scariest : A hostie telling me she was late and not for a flight...
Funniest : The landing competitions we used to have at STN or Eindhoven. Again all in the days before Flight Data Monitoring when we could basically get away with murder...
Tell us more about the landing competitions. What were 'the rules'?
gl20 said:
Thats some mighty old chickens you had there.
Tell us more about the landing competitions. What were 'the rules'?
Hmmm, that should have said 1 day old chickens!Tell us more about the landing competitions. What were 'the rules'?
The landing competitions were quite simple. At STN we used to get in the way much of the time as we were flying old shonky turboprops, but on the approach we could be somewhat bolder than our jet driven heavy-weight brethren. We were always asked to “maintain high speed” which in something that did 180kts flat out was a challenge and was often the controllers being slightly rude about our mighty steed, so we’d get our own back by hammering down the approach at pretty much flat out and see how long we could hold it until either we got the controllers nervous or we did.
We could often hold 180kts to 2 miles before quite literally slamming on the anchors. Torque to idle, Props to max, gear and flaps as soon as possible and hang on as the thing lost 90kts in a few seconds to get down to reference speed. You were hanging on your straps somewhat. All great fun and taught you a lot about how to handle the aircraft and manage energy. Oh and all very naughty of course...
At Eindhoven, we’d usually be kept high and often found ourselves over the airfield at FL100. So the game would be to get visual and if there was no traffic, simply call ATC and let them know we’d call them on finals, at which point we’d practice our Khe Sahn approaches and the goal was to not touch the power again until on the taxiway coming onto the ramp.
Lots of fun as a 21 year old idiot, but as a slightly wiser person now I’d have to condone these things!
HairyMaclary said:
Do all you pilot types talk in three letter code?
Cringe when people on here call passengers, PAX.
My dream as a child was to be a pilot. My best mate at school went on to fly commercially.
I was told I couldn't ever learn as I'm colourblind. Was I mugged off or can colourblind people fly?
I've had a go privately and it wad bloody brilliant. Didnt mention the old eyes!
Yes, we do usually speak using TLAs. The main reason is that we all understand it as if it is a normal part of the language. It is also specific and so often cuts down misunderstanding, though you sometimes have to know the context the TLA is being used in, as many of them are repeated and mean totally different things.Cringe when people on here call passengers, PAX.
My dream as a child was to be a pilot. My best mate at school went on to fly commercially.
I was told I couldn't ever learn as I'm colourblind. Was I mugged off or can colourblind people fly?
I've had a go privately and it wad bloody brilliant. Didnt mention the old eyes!
As for calling them pax, that’s standard shorthand for anyone in the airline industry. Not just pilots.
Colourblindness would preclude you from holding a Class 1 medical, so yes, that would stop you from ever being a commercial pilot.
Hereward said:
I've just watched Air France 447 on Air Crash Investigations.
f
k me, what the fk was that all about? Co-pilot pulling the stick back the whole way down.
Confused cockpit. Low hours pilot with not enough hands on. Had happened to others and they had responded appropriately with setting a known pitch and power.f
k me, what the fk was that all about? Co-pilot pulling the stick back the whole way down.There is an excellent book by someone who I can't remember. While it's easy to blame the co-pilot, the problem is far larger...
djc206 said:
HTP99 said:
Whilst on a flight to Thailand on a 777 recently, we are cruising and then all of a sudden there is a massive engine noise like acceleration, but there is no discernible change of speed, this noise continues for a while then dies down to the hum that was there before, what might that be?
You were climbing I should imagineIforB said:
gl20 said:
Thats some mighty old chickens you had there.
Tell us more about the landing competitions. What were 'the rules'?
Hmmm, that should have said 1 day old chickens!Tell us more about the landing competitions. What were 'the rules'?
The landing competitions were quite simple. At STN we used to get in the way much of the time as we were flying old shonky turboprops, but on the approach we could be somewhat bolder than our jet driven heavy-weight brethren. We were always asked to “maintain high speed” which in something that did 180kts flat out was a challenge and was often the controllers being slightly rude about our mighty steed, so we’d get our own back by hammering down the approach at pretty much flat out and see how long we could hold it until either we got the controllers nervous or we did.
We could often hold 180kts to 2 miles before quite literally slamming on the anchors. Torque to idle, Props to max, gear and flaps as soon as possible and hang on as the thing lost 90kts in a few seconds to get down to reference speed. You were hanging on your straps somewhat. All great fun and taught you a lot about how to handle the aircraft and manage energy. Oh and all very naughty of course...
At Eindhoven, we’d usually be kept high and often found ourselves over the airfield at FL100. So the game would be to get visual and if there was no traffic, simply call ATC and let them know we’d call them on finals, at which point we’d practice our Khe Sahn approaches and the goal was to not touch the power again until on the taxiway coming onto the ramp.
Lots of fun as a 21 year old idiot, but as a slightly wiser person now I’d have to condone these things!
J4CKO said:
sc0tt said:
Worst AMA thread going so far. OP answered one question.
If you are going to do these at least respond.
He is going to speak again when we are about thirty minutes from arrival I would imagine.If you are going to do these at least respond.
IforB said:
Some people are busy. Fortunately there are a lot more than a single pilot perusing these boards...
Doesn't the First Officer usually do most of the work anyway?(Made it to Gatwick, btw. The rest of the passengers can thank my consideration in switching my phone off.)
SCEtoAUX said:
If you took a reasonably intellectual person off the street and gave them unlimited instruction in a simulator, how long would you expect to take to train someone to fly an actual 777 from Heathrow to New York?
The question assumes that absolutely everything proceeds as normal on the flight and there are no unexpected occurrences to deal with. In other words, a flight that was as straightforward as such a flight could possibly be.
My wildest guess is just 100 hours.
You can not teach someone to fly using a Simulator. They are great for practicing procedures but they are in no way, shape, or form, a substitute for real 'stick time'.The question assumes that absolutely everything proceeds as normal on the flight and there are no unexpected occurrences to deal with. In other words, a flight that was as straightforward as such a flight could possibly be.
My wildest guess is just 100 hours.
Ginetta G15 Girl said:
You can not teach someone to fly using a Simulator. They are great for practicing procedures but they are in no way, shape, or form, a substitute for real 'stick time'.
Hmmm, going to have to disagree with you there. Ideally I wouldn't want to put a zero hour pilot in a real aircraft but it's becoming very popular.As a 2000+ hr Multi-Engine QFI / IRE we will have to agree to disagree then. Sorry but as far as I am concerned, button pushing is not flying.
Had, for eg, the Air France guys actually known how to fly then 447 would not have crashed.
Sadly, the Corporate world that is Commercial Aviation seems to want to dumb down. That's fine as long as you have a serviceable A/P and the capability of Autoland but that's about the square root of F all use when it all goes pear shaped.
Had, for eg, the Air France guys actually known how to fly then 447 would not have crashed.
Sadly, the Corporate world that is Commercial Aviation seems to want to dumb down. That's fine as long as you have a serviceable A/P and the capability of Autoland but that's about the square root of F all use when it all goes pear shaped.
Edited by Ginetta G15 Girl on Saturday 30th December 00:25
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