Ask The Pilot

[flyingfan]

Quite real. The spotters at London periodically catch people giving examples of how not to land a 380.

Is that a case of some airlines / individual pilots having shall we say higher risk tolerances? And it wouldn’t just be specific to LHR right?

 

[jb747]

The crewing is interesting , assume the centre human is on the throttles , right seat is flying and left seat is ?? standby ?

Both pilots have their hands on the controls. My guess would be that the bloke on the right is ghosting the captain. Engines being controlled by a flight engineer. The amount of throttle movement is extreme. A tad rough I guess.

 

[cosi]

What is the chance of space junk returning to earth hitting a commercial passenger plane while in flight?

 

[jb747]

What is the chance of space junk returning to earth hitting a commercial passenger plane while in flight?

Effectively zero. The recent media noise was pretty obviously a balloon.

 

[Brissy1]

What is the chance of space junk returning to earth hitting a commercial passenger plane while in flight?

Say 12000 acft airborne; av acft surface area 500sq m; surface area of earth (sky) at av flight height 600,000,000 sq km (to make the maths easy), converting to sqm...
= 1/100,000,000

So with 1 piece of junk falling per day, = 1 hit on average every 274,000 years.
Gee, another thing to worry about!

 

[jb747]

Is that a case of some airlines / individual pilots having shall we say higher risk tolerances? And it wouldn’t just be specific to LHR right?

This isn’t a risk tolerance issue. It’s a really poor bit of flying. It gives a spectacular snippet of video which the internet then mistakes for the exact opposite of what it is.

 

[mjt57]

This isn’t a risk tolerance issue. It’s a really poor bit of flying. It gives a spectacular snippet of video which the internet then mistakes for the exact opposite of what it is.

Yep, just been reading the comments. One guy said that it was a bad bit of flying (landing?), another said it was good. The guy then asked, "have you flown an A380? I have.".

Who knows, maybe he has, but in what capacity?

 

[Captain Halliday]

I’m m interested to from our pilots how they view the risk of GPS jamming and spoofing?

How do you detect it in flight?

When you do, what actions do you take?

For context this article has prompted my Q’s.

 

[AviatorInsight]

I’m m interested to from our pilots how they view the risk of GPS jamming and spoofing?

How do you detect it in flight?

When you do, what actions do you take?

For context this article has prompted my Q’s.

Interesting, you mention this. I just finished my sim over the weekend, where we looked at GPS jamming and unreliable GPS data.

The first thing we noticed was our clocks disappeared and replaced with hashes. We then got an FMC message indicating both GPS L and R had invalid data. When we looked at the navigation status both GPS receivers were way off and so it looked like we had to use conventional navigation.

As the exercise went on and our actual navigation performance worsened the GPWS then started sounding off with TERRAIN TERRAIN PULL UP, even though we were in level flight at 37,000ft.

Boeing literally just updated our Quick Reference Handbook to include this brand new GPS Unrealiable Data Checklist which gets us to turn the GPS updating off and then use DME and VOR/LOC frequencies to update the FMC position.

 

[mjt57]

Interesting, you mention this. I just finished my sim over the weekend, where we looked at GPS jamming and unreliable GPS data.

Sounds like you folks have it all covered. Mentour has a good video on it that even people like me can understand.

A few years ago JB had a "discussion" about failed nav aids on Whingepool with some supposed pilots. It seemed to be a case of not knowing what you don't know, which for me a casual pax, was quite alarming. I don't think that they knew who he was, otherwise they'd have followed the "rule of holes"...

If you guys have to get out the compass, a map and a sextant, then that's fine by me.

 

[markis10]

If you guys have to get out the compass, a map and a sextant, then that's fine by me.

Nothing wrong with VORs/NDB/DME nav or even INS! The airways museum at Essendon is worth a look if you get a chance on a Tuesday

Airways Museum / Civil Aviation Historical Society