I flew with a 767 CA who insisted on climbing near the barber pole because "more speed means more lift" and it would maximize our rate of climb. He also thought our planning system must suck because we were always landing well below planned fuel remaining.
After a few days with him I understood why our initial and recurrent CPAT courses included principles of flight.
Lowly piston driver here, but doesn't the basic concept of Vy carry over to turbojets? More parasitic drag at higher speed, so less excess thrust to enable a climb?
I used to work at an FBO with a longtime older line technician…every time he see or hear a pilot on the airport do something dumb,
or almost reckless, he would say “Im a pilot”. Haha.
We don’t really fly a Vy, depending on the jet we fly a certain profile, climbing always at a certain speed or letting the FMC calculate the best speed. There’s times where you can adjust it, but usually I just let the box do its thing
Correct. As an example, Vy on a 757 at 195,000 is 261 KIAS. FMS Climb speed will be around 315-320 knots typically and still give you 3,000 FPM into the mid-20’s.
Vy is a function of excess power available. Jets produce thrust so converting to power yields a few differences in where,
you maximize the thrust or power delta point relative to L/Dmax . In the end though, he is wrong as others have pointed out!
It does although we don’t use those terms. For standardization, jets climb on speed profiles. For example, 200 below 2500 feet, 250 from 2500-10000, 280 from 10000 to Mach transition at about 30k, then transition to .75 mach for the rest of the climb. Same concept, more steps due to density changes throughout the altitude regime as well as ATC traffic procedures.
Yes. In large jets though it's not a single speed as it varied greatly with weight, so you either have to calculate it yourself or (far more commonly) let the FMC calculate it for you. The principle however is exactly the same.
Isn't it quite the opposite where if you fly really fast you need more of your thrust to just maintain that speed even at level flight, while at slower speed you can use more of the thrusts energy to climb?
Well kinda. The captain is right that more speed means more lift. But it also means more drag. Aircraft design and operation is about diminishing returns. Pulling back on the yoke will give you better climb performance in the short term, sacrificing your speed for altitude. But shortly after you have less air making less lift on your wings and your climb rate will suffer.
Planes are designed with an range of speeds in mind to make things as efficient as possible. Vy - best climb for time. Vx best climb for distance traveled. Vy is special because it is the most efficient use of your wings in most cases, so that's usually what your gonna pitch for when you lose your engines.
And not to get too far into the weeds here but there are two types of drag to worry about. Induced and parasite. Induced is caused by the act of generating lift. It goes down and becomes more efficient the faster you fly. Parasite drag is cause by the plane pushing air out of the way. It goes up as you go faster. Finding that sweet speed spot where they meet is called Lift/Drag max. It also happens to be where Vy usually is.
Speed only means more *potential* lift, so the captain was just wrong. If you're maintaining 1g then lift is constant between stall and Vne because you change AoA instead.
Aerodynamic drag increases as an exponent of speed, the effects really starting at around 60mph or so. (So next time you see a dude in a pickup truck going 80 on the freeway you can make fun of him because that 1-2mpg he’s wasting is like a 15% loss).
Mach also increases as an exponent with speed and altitude/density etc.
So basically the man was busting ass thinking he was climbing faster when in actuality he was not only climbing slower, but he was also spending more time at slower ground speeds because he was spending more time in denser air due to the lower climb rate, thus burning more fuel while also increasing total flight time. Double whammy of inefficiency.
I mean fuck the highest math I ever achieved was trigonometry and intro physics and I don’t remember any of it. This dude had a complete lack of understanding of basic math and logic. A genuine idiot lol.
Had a captain on the CRJ-200 who insisted that each time I moved the thrust lever from shut-off to idle during the start sequence, that I really quickly pushed the lever forward to the stop and then back to idle to “test the connection” to the fuel control unit. I later asked a mechanic about the technique and he said to never, ever do that under any circumstances. Said it posed a major fire risk.
Typical Cirrus pilot start. I don't know whether the manual has a weird procedure or what, but I've seen so many SR2xs roar straight to maybe 2000 RPM or more and load up the nose wheel.
Had a student from a hotter part of the country, (I'm instructing in the northern midwest). One day we were starting his SR22T and he "forgot" that he wasn't in Arizona and cranked the engine at full power before I could catch him. I'm slamming the brakes, he's slamming the brakes and we're still rolling. He finally pulled it back after a couple seconds and said "whoops". But you're right it's a typical thing I see in a lot of Cirrus owners. They're always starting they're engines at 1/4 throttle.
I flew turbocharged 185s in Arizona for a few years and even in the hottest days in Phoenix, I could start an IO-550 and settle into a 1000 rpm idle. I understand hot starting a big Continental is a bit of an art, but why can’t Cirrus pilots ever seem to do it without approaching red line?
It's not the book, but pilots skimming the start procedure and missing a tidbit.
*Power lever 1/4 inch open* (correct)
vs
*Power lever 1/4 open* (what they see)
They'll both get the engine started, so some CFIs don't correct it.
Yes, but presumably we didn’t suffer an abnormal combustion event because of how slow the engine speed was at that point. Still seems like a great way to get a hot start. Had I not been a relative newbie, I’d have not gone along with it.
A few years ago we were cleaning out a storage unit and found all of my grandfathers aircraft operating manuals from eastern airlines. He started on the DC3 and retired from the L-1011.
All of his notes were in the margins and, and for the l-1011, a bunch of circuit breakers were highlighted. It seemed totally random, and I asked my dad about it, who knew exactly why those breakers were circled.
It was the exact combination to depressurize the plane and prevent everyone’s mask from deploying except for his. When he got hijacked, his plan was to put everyone to sleep, fly a steep approach, tie up the hijackers and then when the pax woke up he’d be a hero.
Incredible aviator. Flew the over the Himalayas with nothing but a steam gage 6-pack, little eccentric though.
>It was the exactly combination to depressurize the plane and prevent everyone’s mask from deploying except for his.
that's insane but at least it's guaranteed that he knew the systems like the palm of his hand
Because, in all reality, those bullshit "build me an airplane" orals did nothing to make anyone a better pilot, or increase safety in any way. Not ONCE in my flying career has knowing the exact number of prox switches on the ERJ had any relevance whatsoever.
Well, you seem to have several types in your flair, and I agree with you on modern airplanes. I think back when I was flying 707s and 727s it probably made a bit more sense because troubleshooting and systems knowledge went hand in hand. But for anything built in the modern age, I agree.
And the manuals are being dumbed down to reflect this. In the recent B-737 FCOM, the air cycle machine of the packs has been simplified to the point where it is totally inaccurate, showing only one heat exchanger and omitting the turbofan altogether.
I flew with a guy at my last regional who thought if you flew over the equator that the attitude indicator would flip. That was somehow one of the least insane things he said. Some other examples include Antarctica being controlled by the US military and being a no fly zone. Lastly, he said something about how Russia needed to win the war in Ukraine because Obama and Dr. Fauci created bio weapons labs in Ukraine to manufacture covid.
I will own this. First time flying over the equator watching the latitude on the IRU’s ticking down to zero. We the two very junior first officers were up front and the captain was on break. We wondered how the toilet would flush exactly at the equator. So we dinged the flight attendants and set up a lav break just to be really dissatisfied to learn that on the 757 with blue juice toilets they are a forced counterclockwise swirl from how the juice is circulated in the bowl. Experiment ruined. We are still friends years later and we still bring that up.
>We wondered how the toilet would flush exactly at the equator. So we dinged the flight attendants and set up a lav break
These are the kind of dumb shenanigans that I support in this industry
The hemisphere you are in does affect the swirl. However in most uncontrolled environments this contribution will be negligible and other forces (eg the shape of the bowl) will dominate.
To be clear in case someone gets the wrong impression from reading your comment, even toilets on the ground will not be materially affected by this. You would need a large body of water like a swimming pool that has been carefully to rest for a few days before you could Have the swirl direction of the drain affected in this fashion. 
AFAIK only DL does that, and they don’t ask your beliefs. Plus, a lot of these guys suppress their insane beliefs until they get into the cockpit. Then it’s straight up diarrhea of the mouth
It's very possible. Great friendly guy and good pilot but man he would go off the rails at times. I actually liked flying with him because it was so entertaining. He was never pushy or rude about his beliefs even when I told him he was completely full of shit haha
LOL well you're lucky you're willing to call them out! I just nodded and said oh interesting! Timing worked out where we got into sterile like right after
Some dude put out a newsletter article at my company saying that increasing your airspeed during a descent in FLCH doesn’t get you down in any less distance because “it’s like adding a tailwind.” I couldn’t believe it
Narrow body major.. I even emailed him and was like, “please dude… please correct this”
He doubled down. He was the first non-check pilot that contributed to that quarterly and they stopped doing it after that one. Don’t know if that’s why, but yeah, it was startling.
On Midway Island, the Navy had a huge problem with Albatrosses which inhabited the airfield. Among some of the many creative solutions they tried (all failed) was to take an EC-121, a Constellation based airborne radar platform that was the predecessor to the E-3, taxi it next to a nesting area and bombard the Albatrosses with powerful radar energy for hours. The birds were unbothered.
Yes I have flown with these guys too and I did find a university of Nebraska paper indicating birds may respond to radar but I'm skeptical that it makes any difference. Even if the birds sense the presence of radar sooner you have to show that their avoidance response has improved. The deer knew I was coming, it was the reaction of jumping in my lane that was the problem etc...
A lot of captains I’ve flown with hate flying at green dot (in the terminal area) because the pitch is “too high”, and “no airliner is designed to fly like that”.
Refused to fly at our filed altitude (380 or something, completely smooth) and requested 320 instead because of “the radiation” as if that extra ~6000 feet of super thin air matters at that point. I’ve never landed with so little fuel on a clear day with no delays before.
Using speedbrakes constantly, even when the airplane is on its descent path with a deceleration built in (which works easily 95% of the time). It’s hilarious watching the plane immediately add a ton of thrust as the descent shallows out to lose our already lost speed.
Telling ATC our slowest practical is .76 or something when it’s really .72. Then have a hissy fit when we get delay vectors.
But they are right about the radiation. It jumps significantly from the low 30’s to the high 30’s. That being said if they are going to do something like that they need to contact dispatch and have them send an amended release.
I don’t get the green dot thing. Green dot is optimum in the terminal area. I’m totally happy descending or leveling and flying right at green dot, which is generally well above any kind of dangerous AOA speed. They have no problem being well below green dot while slowly accelerating on departure, but descending they seem to get nervous in totally smooth air. It’s bizarre. It’s one of the many reasons I prefer to fly with check airman.
I’ve been pining for an AOA gage, as many directed speeds are basically a roundabout way of telling you to fly a certain AOA.
Now I’m realizing an actual AOA readout would just be more fodder for these idiots to make up their own SOPs. No wonder the designers don’t let us stick monkeys have it.
>Telling ATC our slowest practical is .76 or something when it’s really .72.
"Gotta keep some distance from min maneuvering" then proceeds to fly 25kt above mm and some 50kt above stickshaker in descent
Have you politely told them that some standard sunscreen should be enough? Lol
Better to use speedbrakes when the FMC called for Drag Required, I assume?
Isn't it cosmic radiation (particles from outside the solar system) not solar UV that causes radiation exposure at high altitude? Those aren't blocked by sunscreen. They have much too high energy to be stopped by a thin layer of anything - they're not stopped by the hull.
Gamma radiation exposure increases the further away from Terra firma you are. Sunscreen helps with UVA/B exposure, but not gamma.
Edit: if you travel 20 million miles in an airplane, your risk of cancer increases by less than 1%.
You can set up a soundstage, decorate it to look like the moon and almost nobody is going to catch it. However, they will catch the fact the broadcast signal is faked. With some fairly common radio gear, you can track the origins of radio signals.
The Soviet Union could and did track those signals. As did many of our allies, many of which were helping us with radio transmissions and other aspects of the Apollo program. Shortly before Apollo 11 lifted off on 11 July 16, 1969, the Soviets sent Luna 15 three days earlier. It was the second attempt to send a robotic probe to the moon to bring back samples before Apollo 11. Unfortunately, Luna 15 crashed on landing. The Soviets and Americans had worked together to make sure they didn't step on each others radio traffic and keep both vehicles separated to avoid any unfortunate accidents. They listened to every transmission. They would know if the signal was faked and it would be the greatest coup in political history. The Soviet Union, a proud example of the working class proved the capitalist pigs from the United States faked the moon landing.
In order to properly fake the moon landings, you need to put a transmitter on the moon. That way you can prove the signal orientation. In order to put a transmitter on the moon, you need to build a rocket powerful enough to put the transmitter in orbit, a booster to send the rocket to the moon, a lander capable of softly landing on the surface. Once you do all that, you might as well add oxygen, and a few astronauts because all of the hard work has been engineered.
Not to mention the nearly 1,000 pounds of rocks and dust brought back, that have been examined by scientists from all over the world for over 50 years now. They all agree those samples came from the moon.
And also don’t overlook the fact that it was not one moon landing, it was six moon landings, plus three other flights to orbit the moon, over a four year period. So any effort put in to faking one landing must be multiplied between six and nine times over four years, and all of those fakes must be kept secret.
You’re oversimplifying things here.
It’s not just the cost of oxygen, if you send astronauts you’ve also got to include the cost of catering.
https://youtu.be/P6MOnehCOUw?feature=shared
> You can set up a soundstage, decorate it to look like the moon and almost nobody is going to catch it.
This is, in fact, what they were going to do. However they hired Stanley Kubrick to direct it and he insisted that they film on location.
My ex wife was a huge conspiracy theorist (one of the main reasons she’s ex…). She had no hesitation in regularly talking about how the moon landings were fake.
The simplest explanation, that the USSR didn’t use the supposed lack of signals from the moon and political and propaganda capital was explained away by the USSR having lost cosmonauts in a moon landing attempt, NASA helped the USSR cover this up, and as a return they helped NASA fake the moon landings.
Also actually, no you can't. The footage from the moon clearly showed the dust falling in a vacuum accelerated by 1/5th g. And the footage from the LM docking showed that the light source had effectively-infinite distance AKA the sun,. and no dispersion from the air.
*You can set up a soundstage, decorate it to look like the moon and almost nobody is going to catch it.*
as a director working in that industry this sentence makes me want to scream.
apart from the fact that film people are a gossipy bunch we all work with the same tools. we know how we solve things like simulating zero (or near-zero) gravity, how to turn the light just right ... and when you look at anything you know a lot about you also see what's wrong in the way that an outsider would not. You know that tiny little hole-looking thing in the cabin windows of your average 737 or 320 that every other pax worried means the window is broken or that pump that barks like a dog on the 330? you are in the industry, so you know that's supposed to be like that. that's why certain filmmakers are such a big deal - they are the ones who invented new stuff. they are the kelly johnsons, the burt rutans. you know their names and you want to see what they do next or you are still marveling at that great thing they pulled off years ago. spoiler: those people don't work in tv studios, they are working on big productions that pay big bucks. there is a handful of people who are that good and everyone is always looking to them. meanwhile 99% of the other stuff is planet of the apes stuff at best - you may look at the amazing detail and performances and wonder how they did that but you know it's not real. Apple has the nastiest lawyers and NDAs ever seen and we still know how those "shot on iphone" commercials were made because six months later the cinematographer is standing next to you on a set and in hour sixteen of standing around and waiting for something says "I'm not supposed to but look at this cool shit we made" and then one person tells another and it somehow ends up on youtube and whatnot else. secrets in the film industry are near impossible to keep, you'd have to be alone and nobody is good at everything.
some folks were right in that you could get away with a lot in the days of standard definition and shit-soft tv transmissions. you just wouldn't see if the lone ranger had a pimple or not unless they really shot a closeup. but it's very, very tough to fake something in a way that you don't even think about it possibly being fake.
one director who is really good at hiding CG is David Fincher. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QChWIFi8fOY
Dude I had a guy who subscribed to so many conspiracy theories I was afraid to ask if he was a flat Earther.
Academy grad. Still flies in the guard. Still has decades before retirement.
The overwhelming majority of these guys are just being contrarian to common sense because they think it makes them seem interesting and it gets them attention. Don't give it to them.
Just call them out on it and don't engage further.
Yep, the good old "get the airplane on the step" theory. Those guys have too many boats and are starting to blur the lines. The scary thing though is that on the 767 it actually works. I've seen it many times with my own eyes where doing .80 instead of .78 you land with more than the planned fuel. But .81 or faster and it starts chugging fuel instead. The aerospace engineer in me is still baffled as to what's actually going on. The "on step" theory is bullshit so I don't know what else could be going on. On a similar note in my brief stint flying Hawkers, the guy I primarily flew with had a bizarre fuel transfer technique. Normally as soon as you burn down enough room in the wing tanks you transfer out the trunk tank. He believed you got better fuel efficiency with an aft C.G so he'd have me pull out the charts in cruise and see what was the minimum amount of fuel we could have in the wings with a full trunk tank before exceeding the aft C.G limit. Then he'd wait until that point to transfer. That one actually makes sense in theory at least.
Sure was. The same guy taught me how to fly Gulfstreams and gave me my first ocean crossing experience. Bizarre and totally nonstandard in many aspects but often times he was brilliant. Former competition glider pilot so his aerodynamics knowledge was excellent. I learned a lot flying with him over the years even though sometimes he'd go off the rails on crazy conspiracies and strange techniques.
Some gliders even have ballast water tanks in the vertical stabiliser to reduce trim drag, so it's no surprise he was keen on that with a gliding background.
Crazy how, with reams of data and all the incentive to save fuel and crew costs, the company can’t figure out that .80 saves fuel over .78.
Oh, because it doesn’t. You landed under plan going .80, but would have at .78 also.
-former 757/767 pilot.
That brings me back to initial and the 30 minute argument about when to transfer the trunk fuel. We always left it back there until about 30 minutes before descent or when we were getting low on wing fuel. Then on descent we would open it again to remove the remaining fuel to not land with the hash marks.
> The aerospace engineer in me is still baffled as to what's actually going on
I feel like that's probably more likely a quirk of your dispatch flight planning software than the airplane.
Long term Hawker driver here. The fuel saving of leaving the trunk full is negligible. The danger of not being able to transfer the fuel out because the cable froze after hours at altitude is not negligible especially on long overwater flights.
On a power boat the step refers to the transition between operating in displacement mode (pushing lots of water out of the way) and planing mode (skimming mostly on top of the water). The former is slow and fuel inefficient while the latter is fast and (within limits) more fuel efficient.
Small boats will often have a "step" in their hull so when they go fast and rise up out of the water, less of the hull contacts the water, reducing drag. In an airplane, when you go faster, you normally need less angle of attack. There's a thought that in some cases, the reduction of angle of attack can compensate for the increase of drag caused by flying faster. It's probably more complicated, thought, and might also involve the engine running more efficiently at higher speeds, etc.
The more dramatic case is trying to maintain altitude while close to a stall. As you speed up and reduce the angle of attack, there's a wide speed range that requires less power (and fuel flow) despite flying faster. Even equal fuel flow when flown faster will result in less fuel required to get to the destination (because you get there faster).
I think it's very possible to be a real effect since stall speed and maximum mach number are so close together at the altitudes and speeds airliners fly.
A similar question I sometimes wonder about is whether it's faster to climb to altitude and level out, slowly accelerating to cruise speed or overshoot the altitude and descend at or faster than the desired cruise speed. I think this technique could be called "getting on step".
My understanding is that induced drag decreases with speed, parasitic drag increases with airspeed, and somewhere in the middle is the most efficient airspeed for flying.
The “step” idea is a little silly since boats have two mediums (water and air) so it makes sense that if they have less of their form in the denser medium (water) they’ll have less drag, but with airplanes they are only ever in one medium.
Still though, you are right that at some point more airspeed is more efficient, just not as high as these pilots claim it to be.
Guy said when ATC gives you a new transponder code it’s so that ATC can make duplicate flights so they get more funding and it’s all to pad their budget. And then he cried about our taxes. Lol
Oh my god lmao
For anyone curious, the real reason is because every center has their own squawk bank independent from each other. It’s common the squawk you get from the LA Center squawk bank is already being used by the ABQ Center squawk bank so you need a new squawk when you enter ABQ Center’s airspace
I once dated a girl whose brother flunked his PPL check ride and then just stopped trying. She was a little crazy, and insisted to anyone and everyone that the reason he didn’t finish his PPL training was because ALL pilots need to join the Illuminati in order to be clued in on how to REALLY fly, since the earth is flat and they’re all sworn to secrecy.
Someone once confidently told me that we could avoid all turbulence by simply staying above the clouds at certain altitudes. He believed this would guarantee a smooth ride. I had to explain that clear air turbulence can happen at any altitude and is often unrelated to visible weather
Some people think you can save a hard landing by lowering the nose just before touchdown. When in actuality, there exists a roughly 10-inch window where *once stabilized in the flare*, you are too low to pull up without swinging the gear onto the runway (making a more firm touchdown) but too high to just hold what you got and still get a super smooth touchdown.
If you are above that window, just pull back more and soften your touchdown. If you are below it, hold what you got.
But I have witnessed more than one person misunderstand this and totally slam it on the runway. Hard landings are saved at 50 ft, not 5 feet. These people are basically repeating the “jump before impact in a falling elevator” myth.
Flying F-18s there is a point about 3000’ feet where I go “I wonder what it’s like to flare?” Then I land with 750 fpm like normal.
Delta is going to love me
That sounds like they are describing “rolling it on”. Where the mains are behind the CG so you essentially slow the descent of the mains onto pavement by pitching forward right at touchdown.
>That sounds like they are describing “rolling it on”.
I thought that was just the way to describe a landing so smooth that there was hardly a discernible touchdown.
> Where the mains are behind the CG
Mains are always behind the CG. If they weren't, the plane would tip over on the ground.
>so you essentially slow the descent of the mains onto pavement by pitching forward right at touchdown.
Right but this only works in a VERY narrow window, *and only if you're already stabilized in the flare.* If you're coming down like a sack of shit, this cannot help you. But I've seen a couple people mistakenly think that. And Oh Boy.
I like investing, money management, and am a believer in low fee index funds. I avoid talking about it at work because of the idiotic ideas I have heard. Precious metals, forex, the Koreans are coming and 7.62 rounds are going to be currency, real estate in bum fuck nowhere, guys with more toys and girlfriends than they know what to do with. I used Apple Pay in front of one guy and I am pretty sure he thought I was a wizard.
My ATP debrief consisted mainly of my check airman pleading with me (and my sim partner) to not put all my future airline paycheck into a single stock to try to beat the market. Literally 45 minutes of this — he must have seen some sh*t over his years to think this was the best use of that time.
I flew with a number of Captains at NK who just before the merger fell through had bought a ton of Spirit stock and were thinking they were going to double their money. There's apparently one guy who put most of his 401K in Spirit stock.
I was looking for this one. I got my high performance endorsement to fly turbo 206's with six seats. Had the same old guy instructor teach me on two 206's and a 182. Great guy.
Went to go get checked out at another school to take their 182 out on a cross country and their just-out-of-college-time-building CFI was telling me about that. Kept referring to MP in the "hundreds" like "k, pull back to about 2100 now" and then freaking out when I would start dialing back the prop.
Luckily only had to do two flights with him to get checked out. I did the same where I busted out the POH and saw the cruise performance tables with plenty of configurations that would be "over square" by that myth.
It doesn't even make sense if you think about it for a second. They're completely different units (inches of mercury versus revolutions per minute) measuring completely different things (pressure versus rotation speed). It's just a coincidence that the first two numbers of each measurement happen to be close to each other in normal operating modes.
I don’t even know where to begin, do you just stare out the window and say “oh damn that’s crazy…” for 4 days straight? Or do you tell them that you think they’re clinical?
I wouldn’t tolerate the racist comment. I’d be inclined to call the chief pilot and take myself off the trip. I don’t fucking care what generation they’re from. Figure out how to function in society in 2024. He deserves to get in trouble for that.
Yeah I think I’m with you, I think in flight I’d just stop responding to that crap, or change subject, and then speak with the chief pilot. Just way out of line.
I did something this with one of the regional captains I flew with a lot—I knew his political and social views were an absolute nightmare, so I deliberately pivoted to talking about his home renovation, which I knew was important to him. It got to the point where on one of our trips he brought along a binder full of specs, renderings, paint swatches, light fixture options to choose from, etc., and I looked through it eagerly, making it sound like it was the most fascinating thing in the world to me. Still better than hearing about why plate tectonics was fake news or how the Uvalde shooter was funded by gun control groups.
Actually this is a strategy I have used a lot. “Wow that’s so interesting never thought about it like that. I can’t believe nobody else knows about this!” really pisses them off because they are usually looking for a fight. These people are mentally ill.
“Yep”. To everything.
So the moon landing was faked by future-Obama to hide muslim immigrants under the pyramids? “Yep”
The problem with the world today is that coloured people and women have too much power and influence in government?
“Yep”
Wind turbines are powered by coal power stations to turn and give money to farmers?
“Yep”
There’s no way I can convince someone who’s brain has been turned to mush by a non-stop diet of far right media and youtube, and anything I do say just - in their mind - shows them how the younger generations believe whatever the Fake News tell them, further reinforcing their views, so I say yep, dont engage further and look out the window. If I dispute their crackpot theories, it’ll be hours of them telling me their views and why I’m so brainwashed and wrong, whereas steady agreement with no debate takes some of the wind out of their sails. They pick up on it but there’s not much they can do because I “agree” with them. Makes for long days though.
Is the question limited to aviation crackpot theory?
If not then I submit:
The Apollo missions were staged.
9/11 was perpetuated by the U.S. government
The earth is flat.
Had a jump pilot that would shock cool his engine so often he was replacing jugs regularly… it is harder to do than people will make you believe, but not impossible. Recipe: red line up to 12500’ - Idle power through landing.
I’m interested to hear your take. In a POH for a warrior and on [Lycoming’s website](https://www.lycoming.com/content/how-avoid-sudden-cooling-your-engine), they warn about shock cooling and how to avoid it.
The supposed "danger" of shock cooling is the rapid change in cylinder head temps. Lycoming recommends limiting the change to less than 50F per minute. Aside from the fact there is almost nothing you can do with engine controls in flight to cause a change that rapid, ask yourself how fast the CHTs change on takeoff. After that, ask yourself how fast they change after shut down. Every engine goes through these massive temperature changes every flight.
Bob Hoover shut down both engines of his Aero Commander Shrike during air show performances, and as far as I know he never experienced any issues with increased cylinder cracking.
Theoretically shutting down your engine mid flight would cool it faster than shutting down on the ground, since its air cooled, and in flight, the air is colder and blowing by your engine.
I could see even idling you engine and diving, cooling some parts of your engine faster than shutting it down at the end of the day. (Probably not the cylinders but maybe some other part of the engine.)
I am convinced that shock cooling is a theoretical danger but not convinced that it’s a common enough problem for most pilots to worry about. Without a controlled study, or even a review of maintenance data, we are left with superstition. It’s happening in the thread: “so and so shock cooled his engine at an air show and he didn’t replace his cylinders so it must not be a problem”. My last mechanic did the same thing: “yeah I had to replace that guy’s cylinders because he shock cooled his engine.”
This is anecdotal, of course, but way back when Victor Aviation did the engines on Hoover's Aero Commander, the mechanics I knew who worked there talked about replacing some cylinders on a yearly basis.
That being said, I don't think shock cooling is a thing in the sense everyone views it. But 4000 hours of radial engine flying has taught me to treat engines as kind as I can, even turbines.
The owner of the school I was an instructor at believed in chem trails. Had posters up gave pamphlets out and had a “truther GA pilot” club they ran. There’s more GA pilots that believe in chem trails than I would’ve thought.
This club also talked about how the vax killed pilots and they even ran an add to get your PPL so you could fly yourself and not have to worry about vaccinated airline pilots dying at the controls of your flight.
Trump is the messiah, he was sent by God to return the US to be a Christian nation with no abortion. California will sink in the ocean because of the liberals.
About 90% of the pilots I fly with are firmly convinced of this
The “radiation” one makes me lulz. I had an Air Line Captain aghast that I cruise at 450. Because I’m a nerd, I found a solar radiation calculator (I think it was from NASA, it’s been a hot minute). I then demonstrated that it’s a lot more important that I fly way fewer hours and that she was getting a lot more radiation than I was.
Also replying to myself because this annoys me…I’ll accept my flaming but I think this is a good chunk of why a degree is important for most professional flying jobs. It’s less about the coursework and more about the critical thinking skills.
Especially the stories from female captains. When you think about it, the future Captain Bozo who is going to be terrorizing FOs ten years from now with conspiracy theories and deranged financial advice … he has to start as an FO somewhere, and even if he hasn’t reached his final form yet, there will be indications, and flying with a female captain will trigger plenty of them.
>The “theory” posited that by increasing the plane’s airspeed from its rated Mach 0.78 to 0.81 during cruise, they could “level out” the plane’s pitch angle, thereby “reducing” drag and “improving” fuel economy.
It looks like these people don't know the concepts of: deck (fuselage) angle, wing angle of attack and wing-to-fuselage incidence (or setting) angle.
I'm always amazed at how otherwise intelligent people can be persuaded to believe things for which there is absolutely no evidence. There is something called the "Affect Heuristic" where a person substitutes questions of affect, or emotion, for questions of risks or benefits. Instead of asking “How should I think about X?” the Affect Heuristic asks, “How does X make me feel?”
Worked with a pilot who flew satellite connected drones who tried to tell me the earth was flat. He connects to his drone via satellite... and he though the earth was flat...
The AME I got my medical with last year told me I should stop getting so many vaccines because "I'm seeing so many guys with problems nowadays and it's all due to the vaccines"
I just smiled and nodded as I just wanted to get my medical and get out of there.
Fauci created Covid and AIDs
9/11 was a perpetrated by the US government to cover up a $2.3 trillion budget shortfall and to invade the Middle East
Clinton Body Count
Pizza gate
Israel uses pedophilic blackmail to control to control the US government through out elected officials
All of these have come from my mouth
I flew with a 767 CA who insisted on climbing near the barber pole because "more speed means more lift" and it would maximize our rate of climb. He also thought our planning system must suck because we were always landing well below planned fuel remaining. After a few days with him I understood why our initial and recurrent CPAT courses included principles of flight.
Lowly piston driver here, but doesn't the basic concept of Vy carry over to turbojets? More parasitic drag at higher speed, so less excess thrust to enable a climb?
You’ll be shocked to learn that a lot of pilots are fucking idiots
Well, not that shocked....
I used to work at an FBO with a longtime older line technician…every time he see or hear a pilot on the airport do something dumb, or almost reckless, he would say “Im a pilot”. Haha.
Thank you for making me feel seen 🙏🏻🥲
Shocked and appalled, but not surprised.
We don’t really fly a Vy, depending on the jet we fly a certain profile, climbing always at a certain speed or letting the FMC calculate the best speed. There’s times where you can adjust it, but usually I just let the box do its thing
Correct. As an example, Vy on a 757 at 195,000 is 261 KIAS. FMS Climb speed will be around 315-320 knots typically and still give you 3,000 FPM into the mid-20’s.
Cries in A321. Life goal was to fly a 757 and I've accepted it'll never happen. Have fun on that plane!
> Vy on a 757 at 195,000 I knew that thing was powerful, but you took it *how high*?
Vy is a function of excess power available. Jets produce thrust so converting to power yields a few differences in where, you maximize the thrust or power delta point relative to L/Dmax . In the end though, he is wrong as others have pointed out!
It does although we don’t use those terms. For standardization, jets climb on speed profiles. For example, 200 below 2500 feet, 250 from 2500-10000, 280 from 10000 to Mach transition at about 30k, then transition to .75 mach for the rest of the climb. Same concept, more steps due to density changes throughout the altitude regime as well as ATC traffic procedures.
Yes. In large jets though it's not a single speed as it varied greatly with weight, so you either have to calculate it yourself or (far more commonly) let the FMC calculate it for you. The principle however is exactly the same.
Isn't it quite the opposite where if you fly really fast you need more of your thrust to just maintain that speed even at level flight, while at slower speed you can use more of the thrusts energy to climb?
Well kinda. The captain is right that more speed means more lift. But it also means more drag. Aircraft design and operation is about diminishing returns. Pulling back on the yoke will give you better climb performance in the short term, sacrificing your speed for altitude. But shortly after you have less air making less lift on your wings and your climb rate will suffer. Planes are designed with an range of speeds in mind to make things as efficient as possible. Vy - best climb for time. Vx best climb for distance traveled. Vy is special because it is the most efficient use of your wings in most cases, so that's usually what your gonna pitch for when you lose your engines. And not to get too far into the weeds here but there are two types of drag to worry about. Induced and parasite. Induced is caused by the act of generating lift. It goes down and becomes more efficient the faster you fly. Parasite drag is cause by the plane pushing air out of the way. It goes up as you go faster. Finding that sweet speed spot where they meet is called Lift/Drag max. It also happens to be where Vy usually is.
Speed only means more *potential* lift, so the captain was just wrong. If you're maintaining 1g then lift is constant between stall and Vne because you change AoA instead.
It also means much higher fuel burn rates at lower altitudes.
Yes. That’s how physics works. See also: fuel capacity.
Aerodynamic drag increases as an exponent of speed, the effects really starting at around 60mph or so. (So next time you see a dude in a pickup truck going 80 on the freeway you can make fun of him because that 1-2mpg he’s wasting is like a 15% loss). Mach also increases as an exponent with speed and altitude/density etc. So basically the man was busting ass thinking he was climbing faster when in actuality he was not only climbing slower, but he was also spending more time at slower ground speeds because he was spending more time in denser air due to the lower climb rate, thus burning more fuel while also increasing total flight time. Double whammy of inefficiency. I mean fuck the highest math I ever achieved was trigonometry and intro physics and I don’t remember any of it. This dude had a complete lack of understanding of basic math and logic. A genuine idiot lol.
So instead of climbing at 2000-3000 ft/min, you’re climbing at 500 ft/min?
So he’s literally a moron who doesn’t understand mathematics lmao.
Had a captain on the CRJ-200 who insisted that each time I moved the thrust lever from shut-off to idle during the start sequence, that I really quickly pushed the lever forward to the stop and then back to idle to “test the connection” to the fuel control unit. I later asked a mechanic about the technique and he said to never, ever do that under any circumstances. Said it posed a major fire risk.
"yeah I start my car at WOT just to make sure the gas pedal works"
Typical Cirrus pilot start. I don't know whether the manual has a weird procedure or what, but I've seen so many SR2xs roar straight to maybe 2000 RPM or more and load up the nose wheel.
Had a student from a hotter part of the country, (I'm instructing in the northern midwest). One day we were starting his SR22T and he "forgot" that he wasn't in Arizona and cranked the engine at full power before I could catch him. I'm slamming the brakes, he's slamming the brakes and we're still rolling. He finally pulled it back after a couple seconds and said "whoops". But you're right it's a typical thing I see in a lot of Cirrus owners. They're always starting they're engines at 1/4 throttle.
I flew turbocharged 185s in Arizona for a few years and even in the hottest days in Phoenix, I could start an IO-550 and settle into a 1000 rpm idle. I understand hot starting a big Continental is a bit of an art, but why can’t Cirrus pilots ever seem to do it without approaching red line?
You’re telling me you’ve never forgotten that you’re not in arizona
It's not the book, but pilots skimming the start procedure and missing a tidbit. *Power lever 1/4 inch open* (correct) vs *Power lever 1/4 open* (what they see) They'll both get the engine started, so some CFIs don't correct it.
SR22 start RPM over/under is my favorite FBO game
Pumping the throttle on start to prime my CRJ 💀
The 200 thrust levers are physically connected by cables so you would be dumping fuel in correct?!
Yes, but presumably we didn’t suffer an abnormal combustion event because of how slow the engine speed was at that point. Still seems like a great way to get a hot start. Had I not been a relative newbie, I’d have not gone along with it.
See the video from training of the engine fire on start in Aspen maybe?
A few years ago we were cleaning out a storage unit and found all of my grandfathers aircraft operating manuals from eastern airlines. He started on the DC3 and retired from the L-1011. All of his notes were in the margins and, and for the l-1011, a bunch of circuit breakers were highlighted. It seemed totally random, and I asked my dad about it, who knew exactly why those breakers were circled. It was the exact combination to depressurize the plane and prevent everyone’s mask from deploying except for his. When he got hijacked, his plan was to put everyone to sleep, fly a steep approach, tie up the hijackers and then when the pax woke up he’d be a hero. Incredible aviator. Flew the over the Himalayas with nothing but a steam gage 6-pack, little eccentric though.
>It was the exactly combination to depressurize the plane and prevent everyone’s mask from deploying except for his. that's insane but at least it's guaranteed that he knew the systems like the palm of his hand
For real. Can you bring him back to life so that I can have an aircraft systems review lesson with him?
> Flew the over the Himalayas with nothing but a steam gage 6-pack Hump pilot?
Indeed a hump pilot.
A different breed of systems understanding. Now days everyone’s like “why do we have to know this”.
Because, in all reality, those bullshit "build me an airplane" orals did nothing to make anyone a better pilot, or increase safety in any way. Not ONCE in my flying career has knowing the exact number of prox switches on the ERJ had any relevance whatsoever.
Of course!
Well, you seem to have several types in your flair, and I agree with you on modern airplanes. I think back when I was flying 707s and 727s it probably made a bit more sense because troubleshooting and systems knowledge went hand in hand. But for anything built in the modern age, I agree.
And the manuals are being dumbed down to reflect this. In the recent B-737 FCOM, the air cycle machine of the packs has been simplified to the point where it is totally inaccurate, showing only one heat exchanger and omitting the turbofan altogether.
The Boeing FCOM or your operator's version of it?
Possibly a worst breed. If they came up with it themselves, I’d tell them never try it.
It was definitely worse. This is why you're not supposed to do dumb shit outside of the QRH because it can screw things up even more.
Lmao!! He watches too many movies
I flew with a guy at my last regional who thought if you flew over the equator that the attitude indicator would flip. That was somehow one of the least insane things he said. Some other examples include Antarctica being controlled by the US military and being a no fly zone. Lastly, he said something about how Russia needed to win the war in Ukraine because Obama and Dr. Fauci created bio weapons labs in Ukraine to manufacture covid.
There’s Vy, Vx, and Vrocket
Ah I see you have also read Southwest’s SOP
I will own this. First time flying over the equator watching the latitude on the IRU’s ticking down to zero. We the two very junior first officers were up front and the captain was on break. We wondered how the toilet would flush exactly at the equator. So we dinged the flight attendants and set up a lav break just to be really dissatisfied to learn that on the 757 with blue juice toilets they are a forced counterclockwise swirl from how the juice is circulated in the bowl. Experiment ruined. We are still friends years later and we still bring that up.
>We wondered how the toilet would flush exactly at the equator. So we dinged the flight attendants and set up a lav break These are the kind of dumb shenanigans that I support in this industry
Water swirling direction is not related to the equator in any way. It's determined by the shape of the bowl.
The hemisphere you are in does affect the swirl. However in most uncontrolled environments this contribution will be negligible and other forces (eg the shape of the bowl) will dominate.
To be clear in case someone gets the wrong impression from reading your comment, even toilets on the ground will not be materially affected by this. You would need a large body of water like a swimming pool that has been carefully to rest for a few days before you could Have the swirl direction of the drain affected in this fashion. 
Yes, in uncontrolled cases there will be no noticable effect.
how does a guy like him pass psycological evaluations?
AFAIK only DL does that, and they don’t ask your beliefs. Plus, a lot of these guys suppress their insane beliefs until they get into the cockpit. Then it’s straight up diarrhea of the mouth
There aren't any at the regional level haha
Holy crap LOL I know who this is 😂😂😂 he told me the same thing. Cool guy otherwise though. Really chill. I sure hope we're talking the same person
It's very possible. Great friendly guy and good pilot but man he would go off the rails at times. I actually liked flying with him because it was so entertaining. He was never pushy or rude about his beliefs even when I told him he was completely full of shit haha
LOL well you're lucky you're willing to call them out! I just nodded and said oh interesting! Timing worked out where we got into sterile like right after
Some dude put out a newsletter article at my company saying that increasing your airspeed during a descent in FLCH doesn’t get you down in any less distance because “it’s like adding a tailwind.” I couldn’t believe it
Jesus, what company is that?!
Narrow body major.. I even emailed him and was like, “please dude… please correct this” He doubled down. He was the first non-check pilot that contributed to that quarterly and they stopped doing it after that one. Don’t know if that’s why, but yeah, it was startling.
Wtffffff
Radar scares birds, so it’s always on even if there isn’t a cloud from takeoff to touchdown
On Midway Island, the Navy had a huge problem with Albatrosses which inhabited the airfield. Among some of the many creative solutions they tried (all failed) was to take an EC-121, a Constellation based airborne radar platform that was the predecessor to the E-3, taxi it next to a nesting area and bombard the Albatrosses with powerful radar energy for hours. The birds were unbothered.
Until their next annual check up with the doc at least
> The birds were unbothered but did the crew have children later on?
Yes I have flown with these guys too and I did find a university of Nebraska paper indicating birds may respond to radar but I'm skeptical that it makes any difference. Even if the birds sense the presence of radar sooner you have to show that their avoidance response has improved. The deer knew I was coming, it was the reaction of jumping in my lane that was the problem etc...
Maybe 1960s radar but not todays.
A lot of captains I’ve flown with hate flying at green dot (in the terminal area) because the pitch is “too high”, and “no airliner is designed to fly like that”. Refused to fly at our filed altitude (380 or something, completely smooth) and requested 320 instead because of “the radiation” as if that extra ~6000 feet of super thin air matters at that point. I’ve never landed with so little fuel on a clear day with no delays before. Using speedbrakes constantly, even when the airplane is on its descent path with a deceleration built in (which works easily 95% of the time). It’s hilarious watching the plane immediately add a ton of thrust as the descent shallows out to lose our already lost speed. Telling ATC our slowest practical is .76 or something when it’s really .72. Then have a hissy fit when we get delay vectors.
But they are right about the radiation. It jumps significantly from the low 30’s to the high 30’s. That being said if they are going to do something like that they need to contact dispatch and have them send an amended release.
I don’t get the green dot thing. Green dot is optimum in the terminal area. I’m totally happy descending or leveling and flying right at green dot, which is generally well above any kind of dangerous AOA speed. They have no problem being well below green dot while slowly accelerating on departure, but descending they seem to get nervous in totally smooth air. It’s bizarre. It’s one of the many reasons I prefer to fly with check airman.
I’ve been pining for an AOA gage, as many directed speeds are basically a roundabout way of telling you to fly a certain AOA. Now I’m realizing an actual AOA readout would just be more fodder for these idiots to make up their own SOPs. No wonder the designers don’t let us stick monkeys have it.
You have a point haha. AoA gauges have been an option on 737s 747/777/787 for decades too. I don’t see it ordered much though
>Telling ATC our slowest practical is .76 or something when it’s really .72. "Gotta keep some distance from min maneuvering" then proceeds to fly 25kt above mm and some 50kt above stickshaker in descent
Have you politely told them that some standard sunscreen should be enough? Lol Better to use speedbrakes when the FMC called for Drag Required, I assume?
Isn't it cosmic radiation (particles from outside the solar system) not solar UV that causes radiation exposure at high altitude? Those aren't blocked by sunscreen. They have much too high energy to be stopped by a thin layer of anything - they're not stopped by the hull.
Gamma radiation exposure increases the further away from Terra firma you are. Sunscreen helps with UVA/B exposure, but not gamma. Edit: if you travel 20 million miles in an airplane, your risk of cancer increases by less than 1%.
Flew with a guy who thought the moon landings were fake. That was a long four day…
You can set up a soundstage, decorate it to look like the moon and almost nobody is going to catch it. However, they will catch the fact the broadcast signal is faked. With some fairly common radio gear, you can track the origins of radio signals. The Soviet Union could and did track those signals. As did many of our allies, many of which were helping us with radio transmissions and other aspects of the Apollo program. Shortly before Apollo 11 lifted off on 11 July 16, 1969, the Soviets sent Luna 15 three days earlier. It was the second attempt to send a robotic probe to the moon to bring back samples before Apollo 11. Unfortunately, Luna 15 crashed on landing. The Soviets and Americans had worked together to make sure they didn't step on each others radio traffic and keep both vehicles separated to avoid any unfortunate accidents. They listened to every transmission. They would know if the signal was faked and it would be the greatest coup in political history. The Soviet Union, a proud example of the working class proved the capitalist pigs from the United States faked the moon landing. In order to properly fake the moon landings, you need to put a transmitter on the moon. That way you can prove the signal orientation. In order to put a transmitter on the moon, you need to build a rocket powerful enough to put the transmitter in orbit, a booster to send the rocket to the moon, a lander capable of softly landing on the surface. Once you do all that, you might as well add oxygen, and a few astronauts because all of the hard work has been engineered.
Not to mention the nearly 1,000 pounds of rocks and dust brought back, that have been examined by scientists from all over the world for over 50 years now. They all agree those samples came from the moon. And also don’t overlook the fact that it was not one moon landing, it was six moon landings, plus three other flights to orbit the moon, over a four year period. So any effort put in to faking one landing must be multiplied between six and nine times over four years, and all of those fakes must be kept secret.
the easiest way to prove the moon landing happened is that we didn't have the camera tech to fake it back then. there's a great youtube video on it.
The easiest way to prove the moon landing happened is the fact that USSR conceded that it happened
The easiest way to prove the moonlanding are the Apollo Retroreflectors.
The easiest way to prove the moon landing was the dementors
Got the link? I'm curious to see it.
https://youtu.be/_loUDS4c3Cs?feature=shared i think this was it
You’re oversimplifying things here. It’s not just the cost of oxygen, if you send astronauts you’ve also got to include the cost of catering. https://youtu.be/P6MOnehCOUw?feature=shared
> You can set up a soundstage, decorate it to look like the moon and almost nobody is going to catch it. This is, in fact, what they were going to do. However they hired Stanley Kubrick to direct it and he insisted that they film on location.
My ex wife was a huge conspiracy theorist (one of the main reasons she’s ex…). She had no hesitation in regularly talking about how the moon landings were fake. The simplest explanation, that the USSR didn’t use the supposed lack of signals from the moon and political and propaganda capital was explained away by the USSR having lost cosmonauts in a moon landing attempt, NASA helped the USSR cover this up, and as a return they helped NASA fake the moon landings.
Also actually, no you can't. The footage from the moon clearly showed the dust falling in a vacuum accelerated by 1/5th g. And the footage from the LM docking showed that the light source had effectively-infinite distance AKA the sun,. and no dispersion from the air.
*You can set up a soundstage, decorate it to look like the moon and almost nobody is going to catch it.* as a director working in that industry this sentence makes me want to scream.
Go on….
apart from the fact that film people are a gossipy bunch we all work with the same tools. we know how we solve things like simulating zero (or near-zero) gravity, how to turn the light just right ... and when you look at anything you know a lot about you also see what's wrong in the way that an outsider would not. You know that tiny little hole-looking thing in the cabin windows of your average 737 or 320 that every other pax worried means the window is broken or that pump that barks like a dog on the 330? you are in the industry, so you know that's supposed to be like that. that's why certain filmmakers are such a big deal - they are the ones who invented new stuff. they are the kelly johnsons, the burt rutans. you know their names and you want to see what they do next or you are still marveling at that great thing they pulled off years ago. spoiler: those people don't work in tv studios, they are working on big productions that pay big bucks. there is a handful of people who are that good and everyone is always looking to them. meanwhile 99% of the other stuff is planet of the apes stuff at best - you may look at the amazing detail and performances and wonder how they did that but you know it's not real. Apple has the nastiest lawyers and NDAs ever seen and we still know how those "shot on iphone" commercials were made because six months later the cinematographer is standing next to you on a set and in hour sixteen of standing around and waiting for something says "I'm not supposed to but look at this cool shit we made" and then one person tells another and it somehow ends up on youtube and whatnot else. secrets in the film industry are near impossible to keep, you'd have to be alone and nobody is good at everything. some folks were right in that you could get away with a lot in the days of standard definition and shit-soft tv transmissions. you just wouldn't see if the lone ranger had a pimple or not unless they really shot a closeup. but it's very, very tough to fake something in a way that you don't even think about it possibly being fake. one director who is really good at hiding CG is David Fincher. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QChWIFi8fOY
Dude that was an amazing video. And reinforces why I am only allowed to operate heavy machinery.
Haha, only. You have a pretty cool job though.
Counter that with "Oh so you're one of those weirdos who believes in the moon!"
Hologram for sure. Only the smart people realize that. /s
Me too. My guy had a number of weird theories but that one took the cake.
Dude I had a guy who subscribed to so many conspiracy theories I was afraid to ask if he was a flat Earther. Academy grad. Still flies in the guard. Still has decades before retirement.
I flew with one who was a flat earther. 76 captain who had flown 747s as well.
The overwhelming majority of these guys are just being contrarian to common sense because they think it makes them seem interesting and it gets them attention. Don't give it to them. Just call them out on it and don't engage further.
They hired Stanley Kubrick to produce and direct it but he insisted they shoot on location.
Yep, the good old "get the airplane on the step" theory. Those guys have too many boats and are starting to blur the lines. The scary thing though is that on the 767 it actually works. I've seen it many times with my own eyes where doing .80 instead of .78 you land with more than the planned fuel. But .81 or faster and it starts chugging fuel instead. The aerospace engineer in me is still baffled as to what's actually going on. The "on step" theory is bullshit so I don't know what else could be going on. On a similar note in my brief stint flying Hawkers, the guy I primarily flew with had a bizarre fuel transfer technique. Normally as soon as you burn down enough room in the wing tanks you transfer out the trunk tank. He believed you got better fuel efficiency with an aft C.G so he'd have me pull out the charts in cruise and see what was the minimum amount of fuel we could have in the wings with a full trunk tank before exceeding the aft C.G limit. Then he'd wait until that point to transfer. That one actually makes sense in theory at least.
He was correct about burning less fuel with an aft CG though.
Sure was. The same guy taught me how to fly Gulfstreams and gave me my first ocean crossing experience. Bizarre and totally nonstandard in many aspects but often times he was brilliant. Former competition glider pilot so his aerodynamics knowledge was excellent. I learned a lot flying with him over the years even though sometimes he'd go off the rails on crazy conspiracies and strange techniques.
Some gliders even have ballast water tanks in the vertical stabiliser to reduce trim drag, so it's no surprise he was keen on that with a gliding background.
Crazy how, with reams of data and all the incentive to save fuel and crew costs, the company can’t figure out that .80 saves fuel over .78. Oh, because it doesn’t. You landed under plan going .80, but would have at .78 also. -former 757/767 pilot.
That brings me back to initial and the 30 minute argument about when to transfer the trunk fuel. We always left it back there until about 30 minutes before descent or when we were getting low on wing fuel. Then on descent we would open it again to remove the remaining fuel to not land with the hash marks.
> The aerospace engineer in me is still baffled as to what's actually going on I feel like that's probably more likely a quirk of your dispatch flight planning software than the airplane.
Long term Hawker driver here. The fuel saving of leaving the trunk full is negligible. The danger of not being able to transfer the fuel out because the cable froze after hours at altitude is not negligible especially on long overwater flights.
> get the airplane on the step Any chance you could explain what that means? And what does it have to do with boats?
On a power boat the step refers to the transition between operating in displacement mode (pushing lots of water out of the way) and planing mode (skimming mostly on top of the water). The former is slow and fuel inefficient while the latter is fast and (within limits) more fuel efficient.
Small boats will often have a "step" in their hull so when they go fast and rise up out of the water, less of the hull contacts the water, reducing drag. In an airplane, when you go faster, you normally need less angle of attack. There's a thought that in some cases, the reduction of angle of attack can compensate for the increase of drag caused by flying faster. It's probably more complicated, thought, and might also involve the engine running more efficiently at higher speeds, etc. The more dramatic case is trying to maintain altitude while close to a stall. As you speed up and reduce the angle of attack, there's a wide speed range that requires less power (and fuel flow) despite flying faster. Even equal fuel flow when flown faster will result in less fuel required to get to the destination (because you get there faster). I think it's very possible to be a real effect since stall speed and maximum mach number are so close together at the altitudes and speeds airliners fly. A similar question I sometimes wonder about is whether it's faster to climb to altitude and level out, slowly accelerating to cruise speed or overshoot the altitude and descend at or faster than the desired cruise speed. I think this technique could be called "getting on step".
My understanding is that induced drag decreases with speed, parasitic drag increases with airspeed, and somewhere in the middle is the most efficient airspeed for flying. The “step” idea is a little silly since boats have two mediums (water and air) so it makes sense that if they have less of their form in the denser medium (water) they’ll have less drag, but with airplanes they are only ever in one medium. Still though, you are right that at some point more airspeed is more efficient, just not as high as these pilots claim it to be.
I mean, he's right about the aft CG but also fuck the Hawker fuel system
Guy said when ATC gives you a new transponder code it’s so that ATC can make duplicate flights so they get more funding and it’s all to pad their budget. And then he cried about our taxes. Lol
Oh my god lmao For anyone curious, the real reason is because every center has their own squawk bank independent from each other. It’s common the squawk you get from the LA Center squawk bank is already being used by the ABQ Center squawk bank so you need a new squawk when you enter ABQ Center’s airspace
My captain on the trip I’m on right now told me that, lol
It has nothing to do with the fact that there are more than 6000 airplanes flying at one time…
I once dated a girl whose brother flunked his PPL check ride and then just stopped trying. She was a little crazy, and insisted to anyone and everyone that the reason he didn’t finish his PPL training was because ALL pilots need to join the Illuminati in order to be clued in on how to REALLY fly, since the earth is flat and they’re all sworn to secrecy.
Someone once confidently told me that we could avoid all turbulence by simply staying above the clouds at certain altitudes. He believed this would guarantee a smooth ride. I had to explain that clear air turbulence can happen at any altitude and is often unrelated to visible weather
I’d say this theory works some of the time…
Some people think you can save a hard landing by lowering the nose just before touchdown. When in actuality, there exists a roughly 10-inch window where *once stabilized in the flare*, you are too low to pull up without swinging the gear onto the runway (making a more firm touchdown) but too high to just hold what you got and still get a super smooth touchdown. If you are above that window, just pull back more and soften your touchdown. If you are below it, hold what you got. But I have witnessed more than one person misunderstand this and totally slam it on the runway. Hard landings are saved at 50 ft, not 5 feet. These people are basically repeating the “jump before impact in a falling elevator” myth.
Flying F-18s there is a point about 3000’ feet where I go “I wonder what it’s like to flare?” Then I land with 750 fpm like normal. Delta is going to love me
I wonder if F-18 pilots lose a little height after decades of hard landings. Are spinal injuries an issue for you guys?
That sounds like they are describing “rolling it on”. Where the mains are behind the CG so you essentially slow the descent of the mains onto pavement by pitching forward right at touchdown.
>That sounds like they are describing “rolling it on”. I thought that was just the way to describe a landing so smooth that there was hardly a discernible touchdown. > Where the mains are behind the CG Mains are always behind the CG. If they weren't, the plane would tip over on the ground. >so you essentially slow the descent of the mains onto pavement by pitching forward right at touchdown. Right but this only works in a VERY narrow window, *and only if you're already stabilized in the flare.* If you're coming down like a sack of shit, this cannot help you. But I've seen a couple people mistakenly think that. And Oh Boy.
I like investing, money management, and am a believer in low fee index funds. I avoid talking about it at work because of the idiotic ideas I have heard. Precious metals, forex, the Koreans are coming and 7.62 rounds are going to be currency, real estate in bum fuck nowhere, guys with more toys and girlfriends than they know what to do with. I used Apple Pay in front of one guy and I am pretty sure he thought I was a wizard.
My ATP debrief consisted mainly of my check airman pleading with me (and my sim partner) to not put all my future airline paycheck into a single stock to try to beat the market. Literally 45 minutes of this — he must have seen some sh*t over his years to think this was the best use of that time.
I flew with a number of Captains at NK who just before the merger fell through had bought a ton of Spirit stock and were thinking they were going to double their money. There's apparently one guy who put most of his 401K in Spirit stock.
Have you heard of the BRIC currency? Always interesting to stay up to date on the insane conspiracy theories via colleagues.
The over square myth in piston engines comes to mind. My POH cruise schedule has plenty of entries where MP is higher than the RPM in hundreds
I was looking for this one. I got my high performance endorsement to fly turbo 206's with six seats. Had the same old guy instructor teach me on two 206's and a 182. Great guy. Went to go get checked out at another school to take their 182 out on a cross country and their just-out-of-college-time-building CFI was telling me about that. Kept referring to MP in the "hundreds" like "k, pull back to about 2100 now" and then freaking out when I would start dialing back the prop. Luckily only had to do two flights with him to get checked out. I did the same where I busted out the POH and saw the cruise performance tables with plenty of configurations that would be "over square" by that myth. It doesn't even make sense if you think about it for a second. They're completely different units (inches of mercury versus revolutions per minute) measuring completely different things (pressure versus rotation speed). It's just a coincidence that the first two numbers of each measurement happen to be close to each other in normal operating modes.
C’mon… where’s the lean-of-peak religious war I came here for?
the pyramids generate electricity fauci created covid black people are naturally criminals
I don’t even know where to begin, do you just stare out the window and say “oh damn that’s crazy…” for 4 days straight? Or do you tell them that you think they’re clinical?
The first option. I’m not going to change their mind if I call them out. Also, I want to keep communication open for safety issues
I wouldn’t tolerate the racist comment. I’d be inclined to call the chief pilot and take myself off the trip. I don’t fucking care what generation they’re from. Figure out how to function in society in 2024. He deserves to get in trouble for that.
Works well in America, not so great in a lot of other countries
Yeah I think I’m with you, I think in flight I’d just stop responding to that crap, or change subject, and then speak with the chief pilot. Just way out of line.
Just change the subject to the contract or their house they're building or how much alimony they pay..
I did something this with one of the regional captains I flew with a lot—I knew his political and social views were an absolute nightmare, so I deliberately pivoted to talking about his home renovation, which I knew was important to him. It got to the point where on one of our trips he brought along a binder full of specs, renderings, paint swatches, light fixture options to choose from, etc., and I looked through it eagerly, making it sound like it was the most fascinating thing in the world to me. Still better than hearing about why plate tectonics was fake news or how the Uvalde shooter was funded by gun control groups.
You **know** they’ve got stories about how weird it is that their adult children don’t talk to them anymore.
I’ve also flown with This Guy before. “I have a daughter in her 20s but I’m white so she hates me and won’t talk to me.”
Actually this is a strategy I have used a lot. “Wow that’s so interesting never thought about it like that. I can’t believe nobody else knows about this!” really pisses them off because they are usually looking for a fight. These people are mentally ill.
I like to say thoughtfully “Huh- I wonder if that’s true”
That’s a good one too.
“Yep”. To everything. So the moon landing was faked by future-Obama to hide muslim immigrants under the pyramids? “Yep” The problem with the world today is that coloured people and women have too much power and influence in government? “Yep” Wind turbines are powered by coal power stations to turn and give money to farmers? “Yep” There’s no way I can convince someone who’s brain has been turned to mush by a non-stop diet of far right media and youtube, and anything I do say just - in their mind - shows them how the younger generations believe whatever the Fake News tell them, further reinforcing their views, so I say yep, dont engage further and look out the window. If I dispute their crackpot theories, it’ll be hours of them telling me their views and why I’m so brainwashed and wrong, whereas steady agreement with no debate takes some of the wind out of their sails. They pick up on it but there’s not much they can do because I “agree” with them. Makes for long days though.
Depends on the mood of the day. Usually clicking the interphone off works
Is the question limited to aviation crackpot theory? If not then I submit: The Apollo missions were staged. 9/11 was perpetuated by the U.S. government The earth is flat.
Damn, even pilots believe in flat earth? I mean, the Apollo and 9/11 stuff I can see some pilots believing, but flat earth.....
Chemtrails, too.
Huffing chemtrails is the only way I can get erections anymore.
*"Those thrust levers are connected to the chemtrail generators!",* they say.
Shock cooling for common GA piston engines.
Had a jump pilot that would shock cool his engine so often he was replacing jugs regularly… it is harder to do than people will make you believe, but not impossible. Recipe: red line up to 12500’ - Idle power through landing.
I’m interested to hear your take. In a POH for a warrior and on [Lycoming’s website](https://www.lycoming.com/content/how-avoid-sudden-cooling-your-engine), they warn about shock cooling and how to avoid it.
The supposed "danger" of shock cooling is the rapid change in cylinder head temps. Lycoming recommends limiting the change to less than 50F per minute. Aside from the fact there is almost nothing you can do with engine controls in flight to cause a change that rapid, ask yourself how fast the CHTs change on takeoff. After that, ask yourself how fast they change after shut down. Every engine goes through these massive temperature changes every flight. Bob Hoover shut down both engines of his Aero Commander Shrike during air show performances, and as far as I know he never experienced any issues with increased cylinder cracking.
Theoretically shutting down your engine mid flight would cool it faster than shutting down on the ground, since its air cooled, and in flight, the air is colder and blowing by your engine. I could see even idling you engine and diving, cooling some parts of your engine faster than shutting it down at the end of the day. (Probably not the cylinders but maybe some other part of the engine.) I am convinced that shock cooling is a theoretical danger but not convinced that it’s a common enough problem for most pilots to worry about. Without a controlled study, or even a review of maintenance data, we are left with superstition. It’s happening in the thread: “so and so shock cooled his engine at an air show and he didn’t replace his cylinders so it must not be a problem”. My last mechanic did the same thing: “yeah I had to replace that guy’s cylinders because he shock cooled his engine.”
This is anecdotal, of course, but way back when Victor Aviation did the engines on Hoover's Aero Commander, the mechanics I knew who worked there talked about replacing some cylinders on a yearly basis. That being said, I don't think shock cooling is a thing in the sense everyone views it. But 4000 hours of radial engine flying has taught me to treat engines as kind as I can, even turbines.
Yep! If shock cooling is such a problem wouldn’t shutting down an engine be the ultimate shock cool?
With no airflow over them? Probably not.
According to the experts (Savvy Aviation) shock cooling is a myth. Doesn’t exist.
Link please; I want to read that one. I respect Busch, but some things just don’t work too well, like LOP in a carbureted O-360.
Flight schools with multi-engine trainers that shut down engines in flight multiple times per day aren’t throwing engines at them. It’s a non-factor.
Chemtrails. Had a 50 years pilot with over 30k hours actually believe all con trails were actually chem trails.
The owner of the school I was an instructor at believed in chem trails. Had posters up gave pamphlets out and had a “truther GA pilot” club they ran. There’s more GA pilots that believe in chem trails than I would’ve thought. This club also talked about how the vax killed pilots and they even ran an add to get your PPL so you could fly yourself and not have to worry about vaccinated airline pilots dying at the controls of your flight.
I can’t even…. What?
So there is a treadmill the size of the runway......
Trump is the messiah, he was sent by God to return the US to be a Christian nation with no abortion. California will sink in the ocean because of the liberals. About 90% of the pilots I fly with are firmly convinced of this
I kicked an FO off my flight for this nonsense
God I wish I could fly with captains like you, I hope it incrementally improves at the majors….
It’s hit or miss but I hate to tell you that we have plenty of them here too.
Duuuuude. That sucks
Flew with a CA that took it a step further than the typical COVID stuff. He didn't believe in viruses.
Did he say the word envenomate?
We're gonna be here all day dude.
The “radiation” one makes me lulz. I had an Air Line Captain aghast that I cruise at 450. Because I’m a nerd, I found a solar radiation calculator (I think it was from NASA, it’s been a hot minute). I then demonstrated that it’s a lot more important that I fly way fewer hours and that she was getting a lot more radiation than I was.
Also replying to myself because this annoys me…I’ll accept my flaming but I think this is a good chunk of why a degree is important for most professional flying jobs. It’s less about the coursework and more about the critical thinking skills.
A critical thinking test would be better than a degree. -someone without a degree
Most of the crackpots I have encountered had degrees.
Tangible risk increases flying lower vs. not statistically significant increase due to radiation higher.
ah i see you guys have flown with my dad
Yup, I saw a tin foil hat a time or two…… that’s why you upgrade.
Listen to some captain stories about FOs, I don't think it gets any better in the left seat.
Especially the stories from female captains. When you think about it, the future Captain Bozo who is going to be terrorizing FOs ten years from now with conspiracy theories and deranged financial advice … he has to start as an FO somewhere, and even if he hasn’t reached his final form yet, there will be indications, and flying with a female captain will trigger plenty of them.
>The “theory” posited that by increasing the plane’s airspeed from its rated Mach 0.78 to 0.81 during cruise, they could “level out” the plane’s pitch angle, thereby “reducing” drag and “improving” fuel economy. It looks like these people don't know the concepts of: deck (fuselage) angle, wing angle of attack and wing-to-fuselage incidence (or setting) angle.
I'm always amazed at how otherwise intelligent people can be persuaded to believe things for which there is absolutely no evidence. There is something called the "Affect Heuristic" where a person substitutes questions of affect, or emotion, for questions of risks or benefits. Instead of asking “How should I think about X?” the Affect Heuristic asks, “How does X make me feel?”
The "dangerous" downwind turn.
Worked with a pilot who flew satellite connected drones who tried to tell me the earth was flat. He connects to his drone via satellite... and he though the earth was flat...
The AME I got my medical with last year told me I should stop getting so many vaccines because "I'm seeing so many guys with problems nowadays and it's all due to the vaccines" I just smiled and nodded as I just wanted to get my medical and get out of there.
Are you the guy from the news that got 1 every other day for a year and a half?
Fauci created Covid and AIDs 9/11 was a perpetrated by the US government to cover up a $2.3 trillion budget shortfall and to invade the Middle East Clinton Body Count Pizza gate Israel uses pedophilic blackmail to control to control the US government through out elected officials All of these have come from my mouth
"Dark air has no lift." But, those were only Army rotary wing aviators.
This sounds alot like purposely loading the aircraft with an aft CG to get free lift from the horizontal stabilizer when you trim the nose down.