Something seems fishy

I agree with Doug and Chia, and want to add that, if people think that landing is somehow the most complex thing we do as airline pilots, they are incredibly misinformed.
 
C150J said:
I agree with Doug and Chia, and want to add that, if people think that landing is somehow the most complex thing we do as airline pilots, they are incredibly misinformed.
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Nowdays, just being able to keep a job/benefits as an airline guy is a complex task in and of itself.
 
ca12_15 said:
I have a friend who is a MD88 captain with Delta. He invited me over to ATL for a couple of hours in the sim. I did not have that much trouble landing it. But he was sitting right next to me pushing all the right buttons and talking me down. He showed me an autoland. It was kind of spooky with the aircraft flaring on its own. I didn't even see the runway till the nose wheel came down.
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I didn't realize the mad dogs had the auto land feature.

Banging one on in the sim is a whole different animal than banging one on with a bunch of peeps sitting in the back. Get a guy with zero experience in the cockpit of any jet and I guarantee you the plane wouldn't be serviceable after the landing that they just attempted. Not killing everyone is one thing, doing it 7 times a day in changing weather and having the plane still be airworthy is another.
 
Talking about JetU… I heard they are going out of business…. Can anyone tell me if this is the truth?
 
MikeD said:
Nowdays, just being able to keep a job/benefits as an airline guy is a complex task in and of itself.
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Haha yeah, that too!

Exemption 3585, knowing your OpsSpecs inside out, double-checking maintenance control's decision to MEL an item that isn't deferable, evaluating when to depart when you're seeing NOTAMs for Mu-meter readings of .12, and determining if you can take a tower enroute clearance out of PHL with CBs rolling through the depature gates also come to mind.And for those who reference the quick reference handbook for various anomalies, I suggest you run through a few yourself and see if they make any sense when dealing with compound emergencies.

If every airline pilot required the 30-mile final they gave the guys on mythbusters, we'd be extremely inefficient.
 
Serious question to the airline pilots. Do the simulators actually fly (feel) like the real airplane?

I'm just joking about going to JetU.
 
t-cart said:
Serious question to the airline pilots. Do the simulators actually fly (feel) like the real airplane?
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They certainly don't land like the real thing. In the CRJ-200 sim, if you just chop the power at the 100' call out, you'll hit the thousand-foot markers EVERY time. If you do that in the real aircraft at MLDW, you're going to get a wicked sink (unless you're landing with a maximum tailwind component). The sim is great on many levels, but a complete joke when it comes to landings. Just another reason it's complete bunk to make statements based on a simulator.
 
Kestrel452 said:
If a newbie couldn't land a Piper Warrior without at least a dozen tries, what makes anyone think they can land a Boeing without thousands of hours of experience?
Any input?
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I can't say about a Boeing but landing a Embraer is 100 times easier to land in high winds then a light GA plane.
 
Gonzo said:
I can't say about a Boeing but landing a Embraer is 100 times easier to land in high winds then a light GA plane.
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Especially since you've had the previous experience of landing light GA planes in high winds, and since you're banging out landings day in and day out as a professional pilot. Proficiency plays a big role in your perception of ease:).
 
t-cart said:
Now see, I was going to put it in the members announcement section in late August, but I guess I'll let the cat out of the bag now.

I start JetU on September 12 and really wanted to fly a real life simulator before I got there. Kind of a "leg up" if you will.

I'm going to fly the big jets!!!! :nana2:
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This made me laugh hysterically for some reason. I picture all these 18 year olds showing up for first day at Jet U and then picture T-cart in jeans, t-shirt and 20,000 ag hours amongst them. Makes me laugh.
 
WacoFan said:
This made me laugh hysterically for some reason. I picture all these 18 year olds showing up for first day at Jet U and then picture T-cart in jeans, t-shirt and 20,000 ag hours amongst them. Makes me laugh.
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And has more "stick and rudder" skills than all them put together.

Sad, but true.
 
Kestrel452 said:
I don't know what it is with the public perception about talking a plane down, but after seeing the episode of Mythbusters concerning talking down an airliner I was shocked to say the least. Adam and Jamie landed the plane and Jamie said "It was not hard". This really ticks me off because a type rating that costs thousands of dollars is effectively described a bupkiss by them. And even with auto pilot, planes do not "virtually land themselves" as they so coloquially put it as far as I can tell. If a newbie couldn't land a Piper Warrior without at least a dozen tries, what makes anyone think they can land a Boeing without thousands of hours of experience?

Any input?
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They must have been using auto land. but that does really make me mad that they tell the whole public that it is easy to land a boeing commerical jet.
 
future pilot said:
They must have been using auto land. but that does really make me mad that they tell the whole public that it is easy to land a boeing commerical jet.
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My aunt and uncle are both in the airlines, and I will share their thoughts. In perfect conditions with the autopilot working correctly, is it doable? Yes. Easy? Not at all. Having some random passenger fly the airplane on descent and landing is not safe by any means and lives are in peril. Having never happened before, it is hard to gauge the success rate of such a feat. But, it is better than letting the plane fly out of control.

But by this logic, a small twin would be harder to land than a Boeing. It really is wrong to describe a talked down landing as not hard, but with a bit of luck it can be done if the controller knows how to speak well.
 
The bigger the more automated - which makes landing much easier.

I'd bet someone can be talked down in an airliner before being talked down in a 172.
 
Doug Taylor said:
I would give $1000 to the charity of your choice if we can go randomly find a guy on the street with zero aviation experience, put him into a 767 simulator and tell him to "make it autoland" and have it com out successfully with no other assistance. And get it stopped before running off the end of the runway and ending up crumbled on the freeway.
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If you can find a random person off of the street that can land a SF340 sim single engine, no autopilot, but with the command bars in IMC conditions down to 200' I will donate $500 of my very hard earned FO pay to a charity of your choice.

Although what we do isn't rocket science it isn't as easy a dropping a basket of fries into a fryer at McDonald's and as such we should be compensated/respected for our profession/alism.

As far as mythbusters go..... we don't get a half dozen attempts to do our job correctly when the heat is on.... we get one.... if they screw up their "experiments" they can retry as often as they like until they produce the results that they want....

And they call our job easy. Hmmm.
 
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