Plane Answers – A pilot’s experience before flying solo, a passenger pointing out a mechanical problem and wake turbulence bumps

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Gadling’s feature, Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!

Esteban from Spain asks:

When learning to drive a car, for most people a few minutes of training are enough to drive, although they don’t know the circulation rules. Do you think that it is possible to take off, turn, and land in a small cessna with few hours of training without obeying the navigation rules?

Hi Esteban,

Soloing is the moment every student pilot dreams of. That moment when your instructor hops out of the airplane and tells you to take it around the ‘patch’ three times.

Can it be done in just a few hours? Absolutely. But you’d have to find an instructor willing to put his certificate on the line at that point. The ‘typical’ range is anywhere from 6 to 25 hours, but that’s also dependent on the airport you’re flying from and the type of airplane.

Densely populated areas have more requirements for ATC communication and airspace regulations, so your instructor will want you to be familiar with those regulations before letting you go.

For a more anecdotal look at the typical times before soloing, take a look at this thread written by flight instructors and pilots about the subject on AirTalk.org.

Cassandra asks:

I just flew down to FL from Hartford last Thursday on Delta and had a window seat on the wing. Just before we began our descent, I had glanced down on the wing and noticed 3 round tanks(?) that were screwed down right by the emergency door. What caught my eye was the fact that 2 of them seemed to be leaking what I thought was water or some sort of clear liquid. It was 2 smaller tanks near the front of the wing and a larger one just behind them. The two smaller ones were the ones that were leaking and all coming from under the screws. It was enough they were trailing down towards and past the next tank.

What are these and though it might have been nothing, should I have said something to the crew after the flight? Of course it was dry by the time we arrived at the gate.
Hi Cassandra,

It’s common to see slight stains around some of the screws on the wing, especially on the bottom of the wing near the fuel pumps. I’m sure what you saw wasn’t critical, but I’d encourage you to let the pilots know as you deplane. If you were really concerned about something, bring it to the attention of the flight attendant. They’ll pass it along to the pilots who can then decide if it’s a serious enough problem.

I always follow up on the comment with maintenance, which is often at the gate shortly after we arrive anyway. It’s just a good idea to take even the smallest comment seriously. Many of them can be easily explained away, but it’s always prudent for us to look at anything that’s a concern to a passenger just to be sure.

John asks:

Hi Kent,

Recently, while on a flight from the east coast to the west, we were enjoying a smooth ride. Then, without warning, we hit a pocket of extreme turbulence. What made this differenct was that it was less than 2 seconds, and had the “feel” of an impact.

My questions are:
1) Is this a normal thing, and
2) Does it pose any danger to the flight.

Thanks!

Hi John,

The way you’ve described it, I’m pretty certain your airplane flew through the wake turbulence of another jet. This doesn’t happen often at all, but when the airplane is in just the right position relative to crossing traffic, it can be startling. It happens so briefly that we don’t usually see any injuries, but it will sure make you tighten your belt while sitting.

You can rest assured that the airplane is designed to handle the wake structurally and it generally doesn’t present any danger to the flight.

That said, ATC goes to great lengths to provide enough separation between aircraft during arrivals and departures. It’s during this time that wake turbulence can present a greater problem for airplanes, since the wake is generally larger when jets fly slower, with the gear and flaps down, than while in cruise flight. If the airplane weighs over 250,000 pounds (usually anything larger than a Boeing 757), then the pilots will call themselves a ‘heavy’ which reminds controllers that extra separation is needed behind those aircraft.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for next Monday’s Plane Answers. Check out his other blog, Cockpit Chronicles and travel along with him at work.

Cockpit Chronicles – Practicing takeoff and landings in a 737 (with Video)

by Kent Wien on

Update: Sorry, but we’ve been asked to pull this video from the site.

Ten years ago this month, I had the rare opportunity to take a 737 out for some flying in the Bay Area without passengers. I was finishing up my FO (copilot) training in the 737-800. Usually, this means a pilot would receive a checkride in the simulator and then find themselves out on the line with a check airman on a normal passenger trip.

However, since our company didn’t operate the 737 before, the first 50 crews to go through training were required by the FAA to fly the actual airplane, performing takeoffs and landings, what we call “bounces,” without passengers on board.

These excercises were actually touch and go landings – a maneuver that you’ll almost never see in an airliner, but a rather common practice among smaller airplanes.

We don’t normally allow filming during the sterile cockpit period (below 10,000 feet) but this training flight was a good opportunity to film from the jumpseat a tape that would later be used by check airman when reviewing the procedures for future ‘bounces.’

The instructor briefed us on the procedures we’d be using that night for our flight from San Jose to Sacramento. He emphasized that we would touch down in the first 3,000 feet as we normally do, but we wouldn’t use any reverse thrust or braking. If reverse thrust was used at any point, the touch and go would revert to a ‘full stop’ landing.

In fact, after every landing you’ll hear the instructor call out “Stand ’em up” and then a few moments later, “Push ’em up.” This was a command to advance the thrust levers, which he would give after retracting the flaps from the landing setting to the takeoff setting. We would move these levers to a vertical position until we could be sure the engines spooled up evenly and then ‘push them up’ to the normal takeoff position.

He had us draw a 3-mile circle around the Sacramento airport so we could safely get as many landings in as we could in the hour provided. There was almost no other traffic in the area, so we were free to keep the pattern close to the airport which resulted in ten landings during that hour.

So come along for this 1999 training flight, one of the few chances I’ll ever get to show you what goes on during takeoff and landing. And for us, it was certainly one of the only chances we’ll get to borrow a 737 for a hop around the patch.

It was a bit of a flashback for me. To improve my chances of getting hired at a large airline, I had picked up a 737 type rating in 1992 shortly before landing my current job. The checkride was completed in a Continental 737-200 that rented for $60 a minute back then. Needless to say, I worked hard to make sure it didn’t last more than an hour at the time. So this time it was nice to have someone else footing the bill.

The captain and I finished up our ‘bounces’ in the newer 737, and proceeded back to San Jose, California, just a few minutes from Sacramento. We had been blessed to start flying passengers when the plane came to Boston a few days later.

I thoroughly enjoyed the training in that newer and higher-tech 737, a plane I referred to as “not your father’s 737” – a take off from the Oldsmobile advertisements and an inside joke for me, since my dad flew the 737-200 for many years.

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to do this again someday. Maybe with the arrival of the Boeing 787 in a few years.
Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on some of Kent’s trips as an international co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 based in Boston. Have any questions for Kent? Check out Plane Answers.

Pakistani pilots to speed up

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Late last week, Pakistan International Airlines‘ pilots agreed to bring their slowdown protest to a conclusion. The pilots were upset over compensation, and their fight-back-by-decelerating strategy caused the airline to cancel flights. Sixteen international flights and another 11 within Pakistan never left the ground as a result of the slow-motion show of defiance.

Negotiations have finally paid off, though. The airline is going back to a normal schedule. An agreement on the core issue of pay wasn’t reached, but both sides have set a timeframe by which to find a solution that makes everyone happy (or, happy enough).

If you’re keeping score at home, the pilots cost the airline 450 million rupees because they flew slowly, but the raises they want would cost the airline 640 million rupees (based on a 35 percent raise).

So, the pilots are more than halfway there!

Pilot nightmare: Passenger flings open door and jumps out

by Jamie Rhein on

Here is a scene that I think would take one of the top spots of a pilot’s worst nightmare.

Right when you’re flying 23,000 above one of the coldest places above Canada this time of year, one of your two passengers, the one who has been freaking out, totally loses his marbles, flings open the door and jumps out.

That’s what happened a couple days ago to two pilots who were taking two passengers from Yellowknife to Cambridge Bay in a Beechcraft King Air 200 twin-turboprop.

The one passenger became “unruly” and couldn’t be stopped from forcing open the door and jumping out. That was a horrifying scene, I’m sure.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, to make things more dicey, there was that open door that wouldn’t cooperate and close again. That meant that the pilot had to make an emergency landing with the door open.

Talk about a wind tunnel. Heavens!

The 20 year-old who jumped is still being searched for and the pilot is too shaken up to talk. Understandably so. [via AP in Newsday.com]

Pilot dies, passenger affects Hollywood ending

by Tom Johansmeyer on

They say that the vast majority of problems you’ll encounter while flying are during takeoff. That’s what happened to Doug White and his family. Pilot Joe Cabuk’s head fell back, and he died.

In a display worthy of a Hollywood script, White got on the radio and was walked through the landing of the King Air in which he was promoted from passenger to captain. It did help that White had a pilot’s license, though he had never flown this particular type of plane.

And, he got his license in 1990 … and hadn’t been in the cockpit in 18 years.

Thirty minutes after leaving the ground, White returned “Niner Delta Whisky” – the craft’s name in airplane parlance – back to Earth. Though all were stressed, none was injured.

For his success, the once again pilot credits “focused fear.”