Morbid curiosity. Upgrade times?

Small jet =narrow body?
No. Business jet/RJ.

In a perfect world with perfectly predicted winds and no traffic/atc adjustments and non-bent worn out airframe our box would never have us deploy spoilers until main wheel spin up. Problem is it's not a perfect world with a perfect airframe. That being said some people just don't know/care how to use them efficiently, effectively, and smoothly.
 
No. Business jet/RJ.

In a perfect world with perfectly predicted winds and no traffic/atc adjustments and non-bent worn out airframe our box would never have us deploy spoilers until main wheel spin up. Problem is it's not a perfect world with a perfect airframe. That being said some people just don't know/care how to use them efficiently, effectively, and smoothly.

To piggyback on this, every airline has operations that drive certain requirements.

Flying an Airbus on the HLYWD in LAX you're going to need to use the boards. That arrival might as well be called the drag required arrival. Getting dumped into the Bay Area? Speed brakes. The Lendy arrival into JFK? You pass over LGA at FL190, so while you're welcome to not use speed brakes and get vectored out 50 miles while you lose altitude at 1,500 FPM, the rest of us are going to duck under and get in quicker.
 
To piggyback on this, every airline has operations that drive certain requirements.

Flying an Airbus on the HLYWD in LAX you're going to need to use the boards. That arrival might as well be called the drag required arrival. Getting dumped into the Bay Area? Speed brakes. The Lendy arrival into JFK? You pass over LGA at FL190, so while you're welcome to not use speed brakes and get vectored out 50 miles while you lose altitude at 1,500 FPM, the rest of us are going to duck under and get in quicker.
We actually rarely need them going into LAX because we hardly ever get a speed change from ATC. The other examples absolutely. Also ORD where they have you drive it in fast then want you turning base shortly afterwards.
Also at a number of places if it's clear you are number one and can turn base as soon as you get down you are just being inefficient by keeping clean.
 
We actually rarely need them going into LAX because we hardly ever get a speed change from ATC. The other examples absolutely. Also ORD where they have you drive it in fast then want you turning base shortly afterwards.
Also at a number of places if it's clear you are number one and can turn base as soon as you get down you are just being inefficient by keeping clean.

It might be when we're arriving in LAX, but it's also an Airbus thing.

When you descend in managed speed and managed descent (FMS speeds and VNAV path) in the Airbus, it gives you a pretty wide speed window to stay within. As long as the plane is in that window, which is like 20 knots wide, it will stay on the VNAV path. As soon as you exceed the upper end of the speed window, it'll stop adhering to the VNAV path in order to maintain speed.

When you do VNAV path with selected speed, it goes from giving you a 20 knot window to a 5. So if you want to stay on the VNAV path with a speed reduction on the arrival is pretty much means flying the boards the entire way down.

Basically what I'm saying is the Airbus sucks at everything besides what it wanted to do in the first place, which is to say it's very French.
 
It might be when we're arriving in LAX, but it's also an Airbus thing.

When you descend in managed speed and managed descent (FMS speeds and VNAV path) in the Airbus, it gives you a pretty wide speed window to stay within. As long as the plane is in that window, which is like 20 knots wide, it will stay on the VNAV path. As soon as you exceed the upper end of the speed window, it'll stop adhering to the VNAV path in order to maintain speed.

When you do VNAV path with selected speed, it goes from giving you a 20 knot window to a 5. So if you want to stay on the VNAV path with a speed reduction on the arrival is pretty much means flying the boards the entire way down.

Basically what I'm saying is the Airbus sucks at everything besides what it wanted to do in the first place, which is to say it's very French.
The -11 flies a very precise path and speed is nuts on as long as the winds are close to predicted.
Besides the whole backflip on bad landings thing, it is an absolutely dream to fly.
 
Basically what I'm saying is the Airbus sucks at everything besides what it wanted to do in the first place, which is to say it's very French.
Flying it in the pandemic was wonderful because I was allowed to leave it alone, it did its thing, did it quite well, and there was a minimum amount of fussing required.
 
The 737 speed brake is pretty ineffective, the landing gear works best if you really need to slow and go down. With descent winds loaded and telling it if you are going to turn the anti-ice on gives the VNAV a fighting chance of coming down on speed in path. It also doesn’t help that my company has the common core VNAV that only calculates idle path descents. There are just some times like listed above that you need them.

In the Falcon 900 the airbrakes (Dassault for spoilers) were used a lot especially with the anti-ice on and because the flap speeds were so low, 200 and 180 recommended with the API winglets, just to start getting dirty. So don’t listen to the guys that get all wrapped around the axle over using them.

Basically what I'm saying is the Airbus sucks at everything besides what it wanted to do in the first place, which is to say it's very French.

That is because it isn’t Gallic enough, too much pan-European buffoonery was allowed in.
 
Here's a fun Brown fact from way back and part of why I didn't trust VNAV in the 75/76. I learned it that way. If we were doing a STAR with altitude restrictions, or even a non-precision approach with step downs, we had to put the segments bottom altitude in the altitude window. Brown didn't trust the VNAV to not go below hard altitudes, so you had to set in each segments altitude, wait for it to capture, then reset the next succeeding altitude, and re-engage VNAV. Of course, Boeing didn't build the automation to do that, someone at Brown just thought it was a good idea. We never did things the way other airlines did it. I was so shocked to find out other airlines trusted the VNAV to make hard altitudes and just set the bottom altitude in the window. After about a decade of that, we caught up to everyone else and changed the procedure to how it was suppose to work.
 
Here's a fun Brown fact from way back and part of why I didn't trust VNAV in the 75/76. I learned it that way. If we were doing a STAR with altitude restrictions, or even a non-precision approach with step downs, we had to put the segments bottom altitude in the altitude window. Brown didn't trust the VNAV to not go below hard altitudes, so you had to set in each segments altitude, wait for it to capture, then reset the next succeeding altitude, and re-engage VNAV. Of course, Boeing didn't build the automation to do that, someone at Brown just thought it was a good idea. We never did things the way other airlines did it. I was so shocked to find out other airlines trusted the VNAV to make hard altitudes and just set the bottom altitude in the window. After about a decade of that, we caught up to everyone else and changed the procedure to how it was suppose to work.

That seems a bit much when it comes to workload. Most modern VNAV arrivals and approaches are also designed to be a continuous descent that just happens to have hard altitudes. But the aircraft really never levels off.
 
That is because it isn’t Gallic enough, too much pan-European buffoonery was allowed in.
It's always really...funny? to be told to slow to a speed that is Awful Close to green dot when crossing an inactive DECEL pseudo-waypoint.
 
UPS

TLDR; "about 5 years".

4 years 10 months for junior captain award. This pilot won't actually be in training for upgrade until about the 5 year, 4 month mark.

Junior captain awards by Date of hire:

757/767 CA ONT - 1/16/2017
757/767 CA SDF - 8/08/2016 (Same for both domestic and International domiciles)
757/767 CA MIA- 03/18/2005

A300 CA SDF - 04/28/2015

MD11 CA SDF - 08/09/2014

747 CA SDF - 03/22/2007
747 CA ANC - 02/26/2007
 
UPS

TLDR; "about 5 years".

4 years 10 months for junior captain award. This pilot won't actually be in training for upgrade until about the 5 year, 4 month mark.

Junior captain awards by Date of hire:

757/767 CA ONT - 1/16/2017
757/767 CA SDF - 8/08/2016 (Same for both domestic and International domiciles)
757/767 CA MIA- 03/18/2005

A300 CA SDF - 04/28/2015

MD11 CA SDF - 08/09/2014

747 CA SDF - 03/22/2007
747 CA ANC - 02/26/2007
Interesting the 747 ANC is senior and the 767 SDF is junior despite all planes paying the same?
 
UPS

TLDR; "about 5 years".

4 years 10 months for junior captain award. This pilot won't actually be in training for upgrade until about the 5 year, 4 month mark.

Junior captain awards by Date of hire:

757/767 CA ONT - 1/16/2017
757/767 CA SDF - 8/08/2016 (Same for both domestic and International domiciles)
757/767 CA MIA- 03/18/2005

A300 CA SDF - 04/28/2015

MD11 CA SDF - 08/09/2014

747 CA SDF - 03/22/2007
747 CA ANC - 02/26/2007

And where the F have you been? Shoot me a message with your phone number.
 
Interesting the 747 ANC is senior and the 767 SDF is junior despite all planes paying the same?

TL;DR: 747 pays at least 15-20% more because of CBA nuances, and there is potential for OT-inclined people to make much much more.

The big W2 numbers you hear thrown around at DL, FX, etc are being pulled here too, mostly on the 747. They did away with the "credit cap" for trips that touch China starting in 2020. Everyone used to be limited to 104 hours per month, but now you can go all out on overtime trips at 150%, but mostly on the 747 because that's the main China jet. It takes a high hotel jail tolerance though. 150 hours of monthly credit with half of that being at 150% pay isn't uncommon. You can do the math on that with $250/$350 hour payrates. Then there are things like getting held out for more than 2 days past your scheduled return to domicile, where you get paid 350%, etc, which mostly happen on the 747.


Sceaming_Emu said:
And where the F have you been? Shoot me a message with your phone number.

Just lurking/working! They imprisoned me in a dimly lit building and allowed me to dole out video-game based torture to unsuspecting victims starting about 2 years ago. What were they thinking? PM incoming!
 
Just lurking/working! They imprisoned me in a dimly lit building and allowed me to dole out video-game based torture to unsuspecting victims starting about 2 years ago. What were they thinking? PM incoming!

Have they been letting you do it up in ANC much, or is it all down in Loserville?
 
Back
Top