Ask The Pilot

[jb747]

Anyhoo … what speed would the aircraft be going when it is in 'formation' with the props? Any particular difficulties in going 'slow' (as I imagine it is)?

Watch his left hand whilst in the formation. He's working pretty hard. It never looks all that comfortable, but I expect the camera is accentuating that. Speed-wise. 200 knots or so. His leading edge flaps are out much of the time. He'd not have the instant throttle response of the piston engined aircraft.

BTW, the other two are an A-1 Skyraider, and a Mustang.

 

[opusman]

The 380 has nowhere near the range, or rate, of movement to make it even slightly interesting. You may as well attach it to a rock.

Ever since the advent of external cameras in the entertainment system (380, 350, etc) I've wished they'd stick one in the coughpit so pax can watch what really happens up there

 

[jb747]

Ever since the advent of external cameras in the entertainment system (380, 350, etc) I've wished they'd stick one in the coughpit so pax can watch what really happens up there

All of the snoring stops them from working.....

 

[Gold60]

mods, if this question is in the wrong place, please feel free to move it................

the T-38 that NASA uses - does anyone know roughly or accurately what sorts of transit times they can get from Houston to Kennedy SC - average or fastest speeds would be great if anyone knows..............

TIA

 

[straitman]

mods, if this question is in the wrong place, please feel free to move it................

the T-38 that NASA uses - does anyone know roughly or accurately what sorts of transit times they can get from Houston to Kennedy SC - average or fastest speeds would be great if anyone knows..............

TIA

Just from chasing around the net I found several references to a .9 M cruise.

 

[jb747]

the T-38 that NASA uses - does anyone know roughly or accurately what sorts of transit times they can get from Houston to Kennedy SC - average or fastest speeds would be great if anyone knows..............

Whilst the Talon is supersonic, they would be subsonic on this sort of flight. I expect its speed would not be that different from the airliners, cruising at about mach .8. So, a flight time of somewhere around 2 hours, plus or minus a few minutes.

Range wise, it's 780 nm, which is probably quite a long reach in this aircraft. The cruise speed would be chosen to make the range work.

Assuming you went off the coast and ran it supersonically....the time would increase dramatically, because you'd almost certainly end up needing to land for more fuel.

 

[Gold60]

thanks guys.

it would be a long way to commute home on a Friday afternoon, after a long week at the Cape - like they used to do in the old days, and presumably for some still, today.................

Whilst the Talon is supersonic, they would be subsonic on this sort of flight. I expect its speed would not be that different from the airliners, cruising at about mach .8. So, a flight time of somewhere around 2 hours, plus or minus a few minutes.

Range wise, it's 780 nm, which is probably quite a long reach in this aircraft. The cruise speed would be chosen to make the range work.

Assuming you went off the coast and ran it supersonically....the time would increase dramatically, because you'd almost certainly end up needing to land for more fuel.

 

[Melburnian1]

jb747, you've previously kindly let us know about maximum hours of duty for flight crew of 18 with an extension to 20 in some circumstances if I correctly recall.

Today QF11 (0935 hours ex SYD) was delayed until 1400 and then 1600 in departure. From memory the change to '1400 hours' was made mid morning.

If crew had signed on at the normal time and an airline then fairly quickly becomes aware of an issue that will delay a long haul flight for several hours, is there what is trendily called a 21st century 'workaround' to promptly sign the crew (plus cabin crew) off and ask them to return at a specific time so as to avoid the hassle of having to engage different crew?

Or are the fatigue regulations onerous (alternative view: sensible) so there's normally no alternative to asking a completely different set of staff to come in at a new sign on time?

 

[jb747]

jb747, you've previously kindly let us know about maximum hours of duty for flight crew of 18 with an extension to 20 in some circumstances if I correctly recall.

Today QF11 (0935 hours ex SYD) was delayed until 1400 and then 1600 in departure. From memory the change to '1400 hours' was made mid morning.

If crew had signed on at the normal time and an airline then fairly quickly becomes aware of an issue that will delay a long haul flight for several hours, is there what is trendily called a 21st century 'workaround' to promptly sign the crew (plus cabin crew) off and ask them to return at a specific time so as to avoid the hassle of having to engage different crew?

Or are the fatigue regulations onerous (alternative view: sensible) so there's normally no alternative to asking a completely different set of staff to come in at a new sign on time?

Such a cheeky sign off/on would breach all the principles of fatigue management. Basically, before starting any duty, there will be a defined period that is to be duty free. In the case of the you mention, it will probably be 12 hours totally free of any form of duty, but it can be longer.

What they can do is swap crews totally when things start getting messy. For instance a late 93, could have that crew jumping to the 35, and vice versa. Otherwise, they’ll just hold the crew until the hours are going to expire, and hopefully start chasing replacements, who may or may not come from the standby people.

 

[Captain Halliday]

Audio from the recent MH incident at BNE for those interested.

As the thread rules require a question: does anything stand out or seem noteworthy to our pilot contributors?

 

[jb747]

Audio from the recent MH incident at BNE for those interested.

As the thread rules require a question: does anything stand out or seem noteworthy to our pilot contributors?

If anything, it's a somewhat curious event. From what I've seen elsewhere, the failure of the airspeed indications was caused because the pitot covers were left on the aircraft. Brisbane has a wasp problem, and they love blocking pitot probes. So, it's standard practice there to leave the covers in place until the last instant. I expect that it's a maintenance responsibility to ensure they are removed (as the pilot preflight will be done with them in place). I haven't operated through Brisbane for many years (14), so I don't know exactly what their procedure is.

Having left the covers in place, the lack of airpspeed indication should become evident quite early in the take off roll, and you'd expect an abort. Failing that, once you get airborne, the system will be very unhappy, and will give a law reversion, probably to alternate initially, but ultimately to direct law. Flying-wise though, all you need to do initially, is select the normal take off pitch attitude, and power, and the aircraft will fly away. Once you go through the checklist, you should be able to bring up the alternate speed scale (which isn't a speed scale at all, but rather angle of attack). GPS height will be close enough, and ground speed will give you a rough idea of airspeed. Once on approach you'll be looking for the normal pitch attitude and power. If the pitch attitude is lower than usual and you're still on the glide path, then you're fast, and vice versa.

The oddity in all of this is that they seem to have a concurrent hydraulic system failure. That has no relationship whatsoever to the pitot probes, and just adds up to a really bad night.

 

[QFflyermelbourne]

JB - I've seen you say here a few times and also read from other former pilots that the 767 is a handful and a 'challenging' aircraft to fly well. Would you say these challenges made it inherently any more dangerous in the sense that it was easier to stuff something up that could become an incident?

 

[jb747]

JB - I've seen you say here a few times and also read from other former pilots that the 767 is a handful and a 'challenging' aircraft to fly well. Would you say these challenges made it inherently any more dangerous in the sense that it was easier to stuff something up that could become an incident?

Quite the opposite. It was a bit of a handful basically because it has a lot of power, and has a strong power pitch couple. It was the sort of aircraft that you need to make go where you want, and not let it take you places. In a go around, the pitch couple is so strong that you're actually pushing forward for much of the initial attitude change, and the power alone will make it pitch up.

If anything, it kept the pilots awake. It always behaved the same way...there weren't any surprises in it. Now contrast that with (say) the A380. Most of the time it's a very gentle aircraft, with the FBW masking almost all of the normal aerodynamic effects. Now, let's have a failure that takes away a couple of ADRs (actually it doesn't really need to take them away...it just has to make the aircraft think they've gone)...now we'll have an aircraft in which no automatics will work, which will be in alternate law II (which removes all of the protections the pilots have become used to), and which will be out of roll trim, and Airbus won't have given you a way to fix that. Now you've got an aircraft that has gone from 1 on the scale of difficulty to about 8. Compare that to the 767, which was always about a 3. One aircraft is training its pilots to be on top of things, and the other isn't....

 

[AviatorInsight]

Audio from the recent MH incident at BNE for those interested.

As the thread rules require a question: does anything stand out or seem noteworthy to our pilot contributors?

For me, I find it interesting that ATC are consciously trying to keep the aircraft with 25nm of the airfield (with relation to terrain) because they were just flying off with no direction. It seems to me that they are just tracking wherever and are a little confused with where they are to establish themselves on final. There's no plan at all.

I too find it weird that there was also a hydraulic leak. Good job for getting it back on the ground safely.

As a side note, there's a rumour floating around BNE engineers that Boeing pitot covers were left on (as they are actually heat resistant when switched on). Apparently Airbus covers are designed to melt in such a case.

 

[jb747]

Apparently Airbus covers are designed to melt in such a case.

The covers I've seen wouldn't melt.... I'll ask next time I'm at work.

 

[straitman]

As a side note, there's a rumour floating around BNE engineers that Boeing pitot covers were left on (as they are actually heat resistant when switched on). Apparently Airbus covers are designed to melt in such a case.

I have never seen or heard of pitot covers that were deliberately designed to melt.

 

[defurax]

I have never seen or heard of pitot covers that were deliberately designed to melt.

Here's the patented concept of a fail safe pitot tube cover where the elastomeric band melts and the cover disintegrates: Fail-safe pitot cover for a variety of pitot designs - DEGROFF STEVEN A.
Maybe such a cover is currently used by Airbus?

 

[Ansett]

Couldn't the melting cover become a potential blockage with in the tube?

 

[AviatorInsight]

Couldn't the melting cover become a potential blockage with in the tube?

From what I've been told by engineers it's supposed to disintegrate.

(As defurax has also posted above).

I hadn't heard of this type of cover either prior to this incident. But as I don't fly Airbus I can't be sure, JB will check next time he's at work.

 

[jb747]

Forgot to ask about the covers...

Some screens from the middle of the night.