Challenger 300 Turbulence Death - Prelim Released

Everything these days is about employing LCD-required employees to produce the highest numerator profits. Sadly, no one knows at what point least-competence will end up in a smoking hole (aviation) or a biological armageddon (genetic "engineering"), or the demise of human relevance/agency (AI). But the folks marketing this stuff don't care... except about next quarter's "growth" or "profit" numbers.
 
The number of times I’ve bad to explain this all to 2000hour FOs who try to demonstrate how smart and proactive they can be. Like “bro it literally starts flashing at you, just wait until it flashes. You can literally never be wrong if you just let it do its thing.”

Wait, so you don’t just preset the altimeter and let the airplane switch automatically at the appropriate altitude for you?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Everything these days is about employing LCD-required employees to produce the highest numerator profits. Sadly, no one knows at what point least-competence will end up in a smoking hole (aviation) or a biological armageddon (genetic "engineering"), or the demise of human relevance/agency (AI). But the folks marketing this stuff don't care... except about next quarter's "growth" or "profit" numbers.

Well, that cleared it up. :bounce:
 
Wait, so you don’t just preset the altimeter and let the airplane switch automatically at the appropriate altitude for you?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Nope. it flashes at us when it’s time to set it but we still have to press the button and spin the knob. If you don’t press it it will just continue flashing.
 
Sadly, even the "engineers" don't have much of a clue (a fact verified personally by many top dogs at many SV tool companies). Most scrows labeled "software engineer" these days are the SV high-tool (English of the Greek, "technology") versions of the McDonald burger-flipper-trained "pilots" who fly most aircraft these days.
1680010058303.jpeg
 
I'll throw out two factors, which I think are of approximately equal significance.

1) The "culture" (for wont of a better word) in 91/135/whatever-isn't-an-airline is just way more permissive. By necessity (and I mean that in both senses, they're smaller and must be more flexible in a myriad of ways, but also they don't have the same level of oversight and therefore must compete, on some level, with similar operators...even in 91, someone is watching the bottom line like a hawk).

2) The flying is *radically* more varied. In every way. Not just where you go, when you get there, etc., but also a million other little variables. Things like "how do I get fuel", "where (if not under the wing) are we going to sleep", and even things you wouldn't initially think of, like "are our phones going to work there?"

95% of my headaches as a 135 jet El Capitan were basically administrative.

Anyway, point being, of *course* 91/135 is statistically less "safe" (within the confines in which "not crashing" = safety, but nevermind), in the aggregate. Even as a *thought experiment* it would be, let alone the clown-show reality of people just messing up (self included). It will never be otherwise, because you simply can't realistically fly with the same strictures as 121 and have anyone continue to pay for the service.

That doesn't mean that it's intrinsically "unsafe" (whatever that means, wherever you set the bar). I stronkly suspect that flying around in the back of a 135/91 jet is still WAY safer than sharing the roads with people like the Toddler, who just park in the left lane and *invite* road-rage in an adolescent fit of pique.

But, anyway, these member-measuring contests are absurd. Girls, you're both pretty.

I feel like 91 and Corporate are getting a bit mixed as well, 91 operations which are true corporate departments - have a chain of command, SMS/FOQA, SOP’s and follow industry best practices often meet the same level of safety as a 121 - and I’d hazard a guess in some way exceeded it. 91 for an owner or LLC etc are very different. 91 is just a catch all for everything not 121/135 though so it’s a wide mix.

While the 121 record since Colgan is amazing - and we can’t crash less than 0- when our principal needs to go from Vietnam to Taiwan, Nepal, or say Dubai to South Africa, I can say with 100% confidence that we know and trust our safety culture than a lot of the carriers you get to chose from. As US pilots we tend to view everything as the same when making generalizations, however a lot of the world lags significantly and one cannot buy a ticket from Ho Chi Minh to Taipei on AS/UAL/DAL etc.

Random question, are 121 carriers starting to get EVS systems yet? Things like “falcon eye” in the corp world are really pretty incredible.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Random question, are 121 carriers starting to get EVS systems yet? Things like “falcon eye” in the corp world are really pretty incredible.
I think the only 121 airline with EVS is FedEx. Looks like it proved its value in AUS a few weeks ago.

My old 91 shop’s latest Falcon has falcon eye and from what I’ve been told it is amazing.
 
I feel like 91 and Corporate are getting a bit mixed as well, 91 operations which are true corporate departments - have a chain of command, SMS/FOQA, SOP’s and follow industry best practices often meet the same level of safety as a 121 - and I’d hazard a guess in some way exceeded it. 91 for an owner or LLC etc are very different. 91 is just a catch all for everything not 121/135 though so it’s a wide mix.

While the 121 record since Colgan is amazing - and we can’t crash less than 0- when our principal needs to go from Vietnam to Taiwan, Nepal, or say Dubai to South Africa, I can say with 100% confidence that we know and trust our safety culture than a lot of the carriers you get to chose from. As US pilots we tend to view everything as the same when making generalizations, however a lot of the world lags significantly and one cannot buy a ticket from Ho Chi Minh to Taipei on AS/UAL/DAL etc.

Random question, are 121 carriers starting to get EVS systems yet? Things like “falcon eye” in the corp world are really pretty incredible.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Certainly it's true that a top-notch 91 shop is worlds away from a fly-by-night 135, and that's a fair distinction.

I still maintain that, at least in the abstract, and all other things being equal, flying to the same 8 or 10 airports over and over (and over....and over) is probably "safer" (although again, that's a weird, emotive word...maybe more like "has fewer holes in the cheese" or whatever) than blasting off to a new destination every other day, however standardized and well-run the operation might be.

But, as you point out, the proof is in the pudding, and at a certain point all of this "safety" stuff becomes arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. And of course I'm waaaaaaaay on the other end of equation in my current gig, and a lot of 121 flying is more towards the middle.

My intention in posting was (at least in part) to point this out. IMHO, flying for a really well-run 91 (or even 135, if there are any) is plenty safe enough for a rational person to do without a care in the world. We're talking about a (totally theoretical) difference of maybe an order of magnitude in "danger", but when that's .0001 vs. .00001, it's esssentially a moot point. You're more likely to get flattened by Chinese rocket-pieces or at least a runaway bus than to biff it flying for a professional, conscientious 91 department flying well-maintained, modern equipment. Whether that describes "most" or even "many" of these operations, you'd know much better than I.

I think FredEx has some kind of enhanced vision stuff (it may have contributed to their go-around to avoid kersplatting a 737 recently?). We, of course, hoho, do not, and I won't be holding my breath. I initially thought you were talking about the transparent balloon thingie they want us to unpack, inflate, and save the day with the next time a palette of Li-Ion batteries decides to light itself on fire and burn through all of the control cables/wires.
 
I think the only 121 airline with EVS is FedEx. Looks like it proved its value in AUS a few weeks ago.

My old 91 shop’s latest Falcon has falcon eye and from what I’ve been told it is amazing.

It’s a game changer… even mundane airports like BTV…

Mountains at night? It’s worth the million+ per install. It can’t negate bad decisions, but, it can give you a much better picture of what’s going on outside.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Random question, are 121 carriers starting to get EVS systems yet? Things like “falcon eye” in the corp world are really pretty incredible.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We have HUD/EVFS at FedEx, and I thought a few other carriers (Horizon and AS?) did as well. I agree it’s pretty amazing, and I am pleasantly surprised how quickly I adapted to it. I use it for every phase of flight, and wouldn’t want to go without it.

Sure could’ve used it in the ASE days!!
 
Lol you’re ok with tail strikes though?

No I'm not.

Talking about a virtual airline, of course. Not a real airline. But they're dumb asses. How do you go west coast to Hawaii with numbers like flaps 5, reduced 24k, and V speeds in the 130s? Only an idiot would "send it!"

Student pilot days we were taught "TLAR"

Does that look about right?

No, it doesn't.
 
You'd be wrong.

That's not surprising of course.

CAVOK (or maybe it was one of the other consulting firms) did a study on it a few years ago. American had the most items on their checklists.

My shop has an item at transition level and transition altitude as well. Remember, the little domestic bubble you fly in is a very small part of the world, and in lots of places those things don't occur at 18,000 so having a checklist item to make sure you remember to swap over is pretty important.

Since it's just a 18k flow, I'm astounded how many guys just push STD as early as 16,800-17000 while climbing up. Like, why?! Not as big a deal when your local altimeter is 30.02 and you're going standard. But 29.50 or 30.35 and going standard? That's a big jump. I've always waited while approaching 18k to go STD.

Mexico is 18.5k on the way up, 19.5k on the way down. And I still see people treating it like the US.


IMO it's part of doing your job in a finesse manner. I don't take the sloppy and lazy approach to it.
 
Since it's just a 18k flow, I'm astounded how many guys just push STD as early as 16,800-17000 while climbing up. Like, why?! Not as big a deal when your local altimeter is 30.02 and you're going standard. But 29.50 or 30.35 and going standard? That's a big jump. I've always waited while approaching 18k to go STD.

Mexico is 18.5k on the way up, 19.5k on the way down. And I still see people treating it like the US.


IMO it's part of doing your job in a finesse manner. I don't take the sloppy and lazy approach to it.

Yeah that’s a good point. It’s probably why most countries have a different TA/TL, to avoid having that potential for an overshoot during the transition.
 
I'll throw out two factors, which I think are of approximately equal significance.

1) The "culture" (for wont of a better word) in 91/135/whatever-isn't-an-airline is just way more permissive. By necessity (and I mean that in both senses, they're smaller and must be more flexible in a myriad of ways, but also they don't have the same level of oversight and therefore must compete, on some level, with similar operators...even in 91, someone is watching the bottom line like a hawk).

2) The flying is *radically* more varied. In every way. Not just where you go, when you get there, etc., but also a million other little variables. Things like "how do I get fuel", "where (if not under the wing) are we going to sleep", and even things you wouldn't initially think of, like "are our phones going to work there?"

95% of my headaches as a 135 jet El Capitan were basically administrative.

Anyway, point being, of *course* 91/135 is statistically less "safe" (within the confines in which "not crashing" = safety, but nevermind), in the aggregate. Even as a *thought experiment* it would be, let alone the clown-show reality of people just messing up (self included). It will never be otherwise, because you simply can't realistically fly with the same strictures as 121 and have anyone continue to pay for the service.

That doesn't mean that it's intrinsically "unsafe" (whatever that means, wherever you set the bar). I stronkly suspect that flying around in the back of a 135/91 jet is still WAY safer than sharing the roads with people like the Toddler, who just park in the left lane and *invite* road-rage in an adolescent fit of pique.

But, anyway, these member-measuring contests are absurd. Girls, you're both pretty.
I'm thinking of Whitey Bulger speaking of John Lennon just now... "I'm an aviator. Give me a fornicating airplane. I'll fly some money out of it."
 
It must be cool living like a "normal" person. Walking through an average day appreciating next to nothing. Can you guys hook me up with a good dealer?
 
SV = Silicon Valley. "Tech" is the Greek for "tool" in the English. Most folks in most "perfessions" don't know much... 'bout "their" professions/trades, or anything else...'cept what they gits from der Facebook.

Any other definitions you need clarified in order to understand? I'm here to help.

... Just give me a few days to reply... I'm about to go take a "cruise" on a cruise ship with a zip line over the cruise ship "jungle". There's even a McDonalds onboard! I reckon I'll be soooooooo happy - live out ALL my dreams of adventure, NOT get colon cancer - and all my prayers will be answered. :)
 
Last edited:
Back
Top