IFG

Well-written article, in non-flying-nerd-speak, for the nervous flyers you might meet seeking reassurance. There's a thread or two one could start tugging on, but generally, Tufekci is a pretty solid, balanced reporter\commenter. Cheers, IFG - You Don’t Need to Freak Out About Boeing Planes (but Boeing Sure Does) ".... the fact that Boeing managed to cut as many corners as it did is testament to the layers and layers of checks, redundancies and training that have been built into the aviation industry. Aviation safety is so robust because we made it so ...." https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/31/opinion/boeing-plane-safety.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20240401&instance_id=118987&nl=todaysheadlines&regi_id=49978955&segment_id=162273&user_id=8ccecf3035088e379d1de9e79ae219b0

Not sure entangling the criminal justice system with accident investigation and operational safety in general is a good trend Cheers, IFG -

Eye of the beholder, of course, but I think the overall design is fine. My $0.02 quibble would be that they might have used Canadian airplanes, or at least Canadian built. Perhaps swap out the CF-18 for the 'Clunk' (too bad the Arrow never made the RCAF inventory), Herc for the North Star (a Canadian derivative), Chinook for the Sea King (most built in Canada)? IAC, they're a nice commemoration (& the selections can certainly be justified by their long service histories). Cheers, IFG -

Drat! I saw a reference to $700M in something about the Boeing sale, but can't quickly find it. All I've got now is a Fraser Institute report from 2013 ("De Havilland was third on the list, having received just under $1.1 billion in 35 separate disbursements between 1972 and 1996."), which isn't too satisfying. My recollection, tho', is pretty strong that DHC was regarded as on shaky ground, and the Boeing sale was seen as a bit of a reprieve, with a bunch of tentative sales closed after the deal. Cheers, IFG -

Oh dear ... doing 'your own research' bites again In any case Perhaps a little selective recollection? My recall is that DHC had been hemorrhaging money, and if buyers weren't found, the Government might have shut it down altogether; that customer airlines were very skittish to make the capital commitments of ordering DH-8's, and that large orders did follow the take-over. I haven't been able to dig up any order-book history to substantiate that, so of course open to correction. Boeing no doubt acted more in their own narrower interests than DHC's (& Canada's), but we also sometimes compare past (or speculative future) outcomes with a rose-tinted rather than realistic alternative. The government had poured hundreds of millions into DHC, back when $100M was real money. The uncertainty about the future was a definite drag on sales (IIRC?) Cheers, IFG -

Question for any helpful soul - What are the CAR's duty time reg's for F/A's (if any?) A bit of searching is only yielding up "flight crew member" limits, defined as pilot or flight engineer, whereas F/A's are defined as "crew members". I haven't pored over CAR's for a few years, and the search functions don't seem to have improved any If F/A's are governed by annual flight time limits similar to pilots, then it is likely in their interest to base pay on flight time (at an appropriate rate to achieve a desired T4#), particularly where longer-haul flying is the norm, but better still with a super-imposed credit system to prevent abusively inefficient scheduling (& best with some sort of credit system). Cheers, IFG -

GPS spoofing will clearly be a vulnerability. Will the airlines go back to INS? VOR's & NDB's have been disappearing at a good clip. Are there still AM radio stations? Do any aircraft even have ADF's installed anymore. Maybe back to compass & clock, boys & girls! Cheers, IFG -

So ... I didn't laugh at the Pizza Hut pic until Kip's post drove me back for a 2nd look, Seeker. Never was much of a speed-reader

Seems to draw a pretty stiff negotiating line, Rich ! Seriously, your point is well taken (assuming your "net pay" reflects the economic value of any compensation settlement, regardless of structure). I think this sort of argument is made for (and by) people who don't understand how flight-crews work. Credit systems seem complicated and arbitrary, but they are grounded in, and address simple everyday realities around flight time & duty time. They're also flexible for fit to specific needs at any particular shop. And they serve as much to equalize work terms for the employees as to hold the employers to some level. IAC, a straight-up "they-make-me-work-for-nothing" argument is just not intellectually honest. The issue is whether at the end of the day, when your work's done, are you paid enough? Cheers, IFG -

Optimism's always good! Sure wouldn't want it called the Lucifer nut Cheers, IFG -

Well ... here ya go (sorta ) - Cheers, IFG https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/jal-jcg-a350-airbus-news-analysis/

I guess you're not spending a lot of time south of the world's longest undefended border, Kip, it's still in use down here. Don't know the total face value of all the $0.01's in circulation, but i suspect it's a fraction of the total economic costs of minting, counting & storing all that copper. The penny also still lives in Canadian cyberspace, on credit card bills and such (& for airline content: I believe Avgas is priced to the penny/litre ) Cheers, IFG -

Exactly! I also recall the 737/Metro collision, it was around then that I started using landing lights when on active runways at night (obviously having some consideration for other aircraft close by), as well as taxiing/holding off-centre. High intensity lighting pretty much drowns out any running/strobe lights on an aircraft, but there's little chance of missing the illuminated runway surface ahead when the landing lights come on. I did float the idea at a couple of ALPA safety meetings, but it didn't get much traction. Also retired now, so just my $0.02, after a couple decades of cargo-hauling across the country at night. Nothing much changed after previous tragedies like this one, Reason's model is alive and kicking ... Cheers, IFG -

Although nominally paid by the flight-hour, most airline pilots working under a collective agreement do have provisions that mitigate, or at least address ground-time issues. The most common formulas will assess a pairing for flight time, or a factor of total on-duty time, total away-from-base time , or a minimum hrs/day. Most pilots will block out about 1000 credit-hrs/yr, majority will not actually fly 1000 hours. There isn't a 1-size-fits-all solution, and provisions can be tweaked to fit usual operational considerations. Kind of surprised that F/A's would not have me-too'd those sorts of provisions long ago Cheers, IFG -

That was certainly my recollection, but I think the references to the Japan CG DH-8 not having strobes alluded to selection. Many pilots do not select strobes on until cleared for take-off. Same for landing lights. Runway environments at night are so cluttered with various lights, I'm not convinced that the strobes on a holding aircraft even make much difference to another aircraft on approach to land. It further doesn't help that we're so anal about lining up or taxiing right on the centre-line, so aircraft lights just blend in to 100's or 1000's of others (& some of them flashing too). Seems to me it would be better to taxi asymmetrically, and certainly hold position off the centre-line. A bit more problematic (for other aircraft on the ground) is using landing lights whenever on an active runway. I leaned more to being visible, but tried not to blind anybody . IAC, the illuminated runway surface is unmistakable to a landing aircraft. JMHO, Cheers -

Agreed about the quality of this particular iteration, Seeker, but the better-crafted warning below came years ago, and this tech is advancing at breakneck speed. Yeah, we should take the sort of care you suggest, but it's worrisome nonetheless, and some people are probably gonna get caught flat-footed while the white hats try to outrun the black hats. Cheers, IFG

eh .... Maybe YYZ is not so bad .... Cheers, IFG -

That attitude is fairly widespread, J.O., & not just at AC either, but it's not universal (see above). IMHO, it isn't just short-sighted in the practical sense, it's simply unethical. Those who are fortunate enough to have collective bargaining owe it to anybody who would be bound by the contract to fairly represent their interests. Unfortunately, that standard doesn't always prevail. And inevitably there are consequences. Concessionary bargaining is always tough. The sad thing here is there are honest arguments for preserving longer-term payscales as much as possible - for the benefit of everybody including the yet-to-join cohort, but avowedly selling out your future members is predictably toxic. In the end, though, you get the representation you elect, and there the responsibility lies. Cheers, IFG

Not everybody's taste in literature, for sure . But some of us nerds lap this sort of stuff up. This article, tho', maybe not so much. The writer seems to conflate mystery with complexity. The various physics keeping us all aloft are each quite well understood (outside the ALPA walls ), but the interactions here are extremely complex, as anybody who deals with simulation would be happy to tell you. There's a lot of 'this'll work" to cover for the gaps in math - subject to verification by flight test, which is why we should be careful about drawing any conclusions from simulator behavior outside the prescribed envelope. e.g., was once told that anything beyond 2° sideslip is guesswork. Cheers. IFG - p.s. re; Inverted, symmetrical airfoils don't care - altho' upside-down does feel a bit funny at first like Kip says. Wing is fat dumb and happy, but the airframe bolted on to it is pretty nose-up because of constructed (right-side-up) angle-of-incidence; less so on aerobatic birds with 0 built-in AOI (as they never really know which way is going to be up ).

Well, Kip, some of us are nodding our heads. A key point in support of the exploration aspect is that that's one endeavor clearly better done with robots, at about 10% cost and 0% risk of lost lives. Boestar - Your economics applies equally if we give all those high-paid folks a shovel and get some pot-holes filled Cheers, IFG -

I'd be surprised if he operated his scheduled flight. Perhaps Delta will get a bigger settlement than he does ? Cheers, IFG -

757-200 according to Flightaware. Cheers - IFG

Quick replies, but a caveat: I have quite a bit of PT6/7 time, but many years have elapsed. No hard feelings if anything I say needs correction Generally manually feathered in securing a engine shutdown (PT6/7 are feathered during normal shutdown too). Auto feather is for take-off, to improve the runway and climb-out limitations wrt engine failure on take-off (by speeding up the immediate procedures), and selected off shortly after take-off. I also know of one unsolicited double auto-feather in a twin otter, due to corrosion in a wire bundle that shorted the auto-feather circuits when prop deice was selected. I never spoke with the crew, but I understand that the prop de-ice was intuitively and immediately selected back off, so they did come out of it OK. [leading to my own facetious suggestion that the first recall item for any surprise emergency should be "Undo That Last Thing You Just Did!"] I'd say that's pretty unlikely (different grips, detents etc), but probably not impossible. I can't help wondering about on-line 'training' scenarios tho'. Not sure why the "pessimistic", Kip. The aircraft remains completely controllable with both feathered. I guess we'll have to await the report, but I'm inclined to think (IMHO!) that there'd be a chain of questionable airmanship between unsolicited auto-feather and a stall, if that turns out to be what happened. Controllability comments not referring to prop malfunctions involving beta or reverse, of course. IAC, a tragedy all round Cheers, IFG -

Interesting, to be sure - but if so, there's a lot more to the story. For the non-pilots: both props feathered (if indeed that occurred prior to impact) renders the aircraft a glider, but does not itself explain total loss of control.

Couple of issues in discussion here. Punitive/non-punitive safety culture - couldn't agree more with comments above. Many overseas domains are in the dark ages on this, but even here, retributive policies aren't totally banished at every airline (well ... my seat's been in the bleachers for a few years, maybe better now?). An adversarial civil litigation system also weighs in. The real benefits of open and honest safety reporting (with the necessary protections), and the threats to it, are not sufficiently apparent to the public, so the struggle continues. Given the accident/incident record involving basic flying skills, your caution seems well-founded, Seeker, but this gives me the willies. It's not a new concern, in fact has been discussed at safety forums for at least a couple of decades. The ability of airline pilots to handle basic maneuvers ought to be a bedrock assumption (and one surely crucial to the arguments against replacing us all with automatics). One does not like to sound like those tiresome educators bemoaning the abandonment of teaching cursive writing (lest such an inapt analogy seem applicable), but amid all the advancements and improvements in airline training, it seems the basic skills don 't carry the importance they should, smothered in emphasis on the PFM as they are, & that's not a healthy trend. Just my $0.02 - IFG