Nice that the stewardesses wear batik uniforms!
Regards,
Posted on 03/12/2024 7:38:49 AM PDT by libh8er
“...for the 2.55-hour flight to Jakarta on Jan. 25.”
Someone can’t stay awake for a 3 hour flight? Sounds like the aircaft version of Gilligan’s Island.
I talked to a crew chief of a C141 and he told me he has been asked to watch the shop during times of the pilots sleeping on long flights. And he told me he has independently done schedule altitude changes with them out.
The article didn’t say if there was a qualified person in the cockpit with them to oversee the aircraft. The autopilot is not a sure bet to fly the aircraft by itself and has to be monitored for variations. It also cannot answer incoming radio calls for a variety of situations pertinent to the flight that the FMS cannot recognize and do without manual physical direction from the pilot. Even normal flight varies and fewer than 1% of the airliners of today have the capacity to “autolands.” And those have to monitored by pilots in the cockpit.
wy69
Nice that the stewardesses wear batik uniforms!
Regards,
Apparently FO stand for F-off.
I was on a flight once(somewhere in the east) & after landing, the pilot notified us that it was a fully automated landing. It was a fine landing, but I never realized that so few planes had this capability.
I worked with a guy who flew B52 missions from North Dakota to Vietnam and he said flying is one of the most boring things you can do and was one reason the military had numerous checklists was to keep pilots busy. He also had a pocket full of hard candy to help keep him awake.
“...it was a fully automated landing.”
The use of computers in landing are not all that unusual. But those are pilot assisted. There are problems that come up in landing an aircraft that can be physical or mental by a number of sources. Vortex off other aircraft wings along with high winds can create cross winds that might vary in strength are one in particular.
An example of a mental issue happened to me in a small aircraft I was in the right hand seat when we came into the San Francisco basin. We contacted SFI for cloud clearance and requested a straight in to 28L or 28R. They can sometimes slip a smaller aircaft that doesn’t need as much runway in between larger ones and get them out of the way on to taxiways so the large aircraft can use the runway beyond the smaller aircaft needs.
They asked us to re-report over Dumbarton Bridge and when we did, they cleared us to 28L. We were just over the runway, gear green, flaps red, mixture rich, when we heard a radio call asking the tower if they had cleared the bonanza to 28L or 28R. We didn’t know where they were so up comes the flaps and gear and we were flat out at about 10 feet off the ground. After a few seconds the passenger liner passed us on 28R. My pilot reset up and landed well down the runway and we went to terminal parking before we went up to the tower. The man flying our aircarft was very mad.
What had happened, we found out later, was that the ATC guy when we got over the runway had passed the card on to teminal parking and forgot we were there. When the request from the passenger liner came in wanting to know where we were, he had no idea. Error. So it happens with a lot of aircraft in immediate airspace. Airports like Chicago, DC, or hubs like Dallas, Atlanta, or Indianapolis, and foreign like London, can have over 100 aircraft in their airspace at any one time. This is why the shifts for ATC are so short.
wy69
“...it was a fully automated landing.”
The use of computers in landing are not all that unusual. But those are pilot assisted. There are problems that come up in landing an aircraft that can be physical or mental by a number of sources. Vortex off other aircraft wings along with high winds can create cross winds that might vary in strength are one in particular.
An example of a mental issue happened to me in a small aircraft I was in the right hand seat when we came into the San Francisco basin. We contacted SFI for cloud clearance and requested a straight in to 28L or 28R. They can sometimes slip a smaller aircaft that doesn’t need as much runway in between larger ones and get them out of the way on to taxiways so the large aircraft can use the runway beyond the smaller aircaft needs.
They asked us to re-report over Dumbarton Bridge and when we did, they cleared us to 28L. We were just over the runway, gear green, flaps red, mixture rich, when we heard a radio call asking the tower if they had cleared the bonanza to 28L or 28R. We didn’t know where they were so up comes the flaps and gear and we were flat out at about 10 feet off the ground. After a few seconds the passenger liner passed us on 28R. My pilot reset up and landed well down the runway and we went to terminal parking before we went up to the tower. The man flying our aircarft was very mad.
What had happened, we found out later, was that the ATC guy when we got over the runway had passed the card on to teminal parking and forgot we were there. When the request from the passenger liner came in wanting to know where we were, he had no idea. Error. So it happens with a lot of aircraft in immediate airspace. Airports like Chicago, DC, or hubs like Dallas, Atlanta, or Indianapolis, and foreign like London, can have over 100 aircraft in their airspace at any one time. This is why the shifts for ATC are so short.
wy69
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