Video of the Week (4.9.10)

This week we have a video from AvWeb, an aviation news site, of an insightful interview with Jeffrey Skiles, the humble co-pilot of the USAirways flight 1549 that ditched in the Hudson. Jeffrey says he’d do it all again if he had the chance to go back in time, but that there’s still one moment in a flight that still gives him a startle. But let’s hear about it from him:

Do you have a great travel related suggestion for our Video of the Week? Fill out this form or just include my twitter handle @veryjr in your tweet about it. Maybe we’ll use it as next week’s Video.

Plane Answers: Step climbs, ferry flights and US Airways milking the publicity

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!

Sam asks:

I just “discovered” your Q&A’s section and I wanted to thank you for all the useful information. I had a question I wanted to ask you as well.

Often at at the end of a flight I hear the engines surge and feel mildly pressed into my seat, similar to the sensation of the sudden acceleration of takeoff. Why do the planes accelerate at this time and if they can be flying faster safely, why not do so the entire flight?

P.S. How often can I bother you with questions?

Hi Sam,

Fire away with the questions. I’ll try to answer them here if they’re relevant. We can never have too many!

What you may have experienced was a step-climb. As the airplane burns off fuel, it’s more efficient to fly at a higher altitude. So as the flight progresses pilots may elect to climb, often 2,000 feet at a time, to a higher altitude.

These “step climbs” could happen throughout the flight, with the exception of transatlantic flights which have to wait until they’re across the Atlantic before they can request a climb since ATC can’t see these airplanes via radar.

But there is one other possible explanation.
Since the British Airways 777 accident at London last year, 777 operators with the Rolls-Royce engines have to advance the throttles to maximum thrust for ten seconds before initiating the descent if the fuel temperature is below -10C.

We don’t fly at the maximum cruise power for the duration of the flight, since the added fuel burn would far exceed the benefits of arriving at our destination five minutes earlier.

Very perceptive and keep the questions coming, Sam.

James comments:

I was told by a very reliable source (older brother of a United pilot) that United hired a public relations firm to promote “Sully” and crew. They are determined to get as much mileage from this event as possible.

I think you meant to say that US Airways was trying to get the most publicity from this event as possible. And while that may be true, it hasn’t prevented ‘Sully’ from pointing out that US Airways had used bankruptcy as a “fishing expedition to get what they could not get in normal times,” and noted that his pay had been cut 40 percent in recent years and his pension had been terminated and replaced with a promise “worth pennies on the dollar.”

Certainly he’s avoided the influence of company spokespersons and he’s felt free enough to speak his mind.

I’m currently reading the book It’s not news, it’s Fark, which outlines how companies and organizations try to influence the direction of the news. But it seems in this case, the media demand for interviews has been significant enough that a publicity campaign by the airline wouldn’t be necessary.

Thomas asks:

Hi Kent-

I love reading both of your columns! I miss reading Cockpit Chronicles.

I don’t know if you can answer this question for me or not, but how do plane manufacturers transport new smaller planes (ex: A320, B737) overseas to buyers? Are these planes able to fly across the ocean without any passengers on board?

When I was 15, my sister and I overheard my dad turn down an offer to fly a 737 from Seattle to London. We forced him to call back and take the trip which gave us an opportunity to ride in the cockpit with him, since it was considered a ferry flight. Not to mention the fact that it gave us the opportunity to see London.

Up to that point, we had never been able to ride in the cockpit, of course.

We flew from Seattle with our fuel tanks topped off, to Goose Bay, Canada. We then proceeded all the way to South Hampton, England. Had we been limited in range further, we would have stopped in Gander, Newfoundland, and perhaps Reykjavik, Iceland before flying on to our destination.

This is also how smaller, single-engine Cessnas are flown to and from Europe, but they often carry auxiliary fuel tanks inside the cabin.

I’m very sympathetic to these ferry pilots flying the smaller airplanes. It can’t be a relaxing flight to be down low, in an airplane with just one engine, while trying to avoid icing conditions. Those pilots earn every penny they get.

Todays Boeing and Airbus narrow-body airplanes can travel more than 2,500 nautical miles, so there are more options for them.

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.

Plane Answers: Why captain Sullenberger and his crew deserve the hero status

There’s an interesting trend in our culture that cites pilots either as heroes or villains based on their performance in an emergency. I would imagine that Captain “Sully” Sullenberger would actually cringe at a pilot being given either label. And while we won’t hear from him until the airing of 60 Minutes this Sunday, I imagine he’ll proclaim that he simply did his job the best he could, and that the entire crew’s training contributed to the successful ditching.

But Captain Sullenberger might deserve far more credit than he’s (hypothetically) giving himself. Sullenberger’s ‘stick and rudder’ skills are what I would hope most pilots are capable of. But his true act of heroism, and the main reason he may actually deserve that label, isn’t getting much attention.

It was his decision to abandon any chance of an engine-out landing back at LaGuardia or the Teterborough airport, and make his way for the Hudson River, that should be commended. Considering the position they were in, I’d imagine a majority of pilots (probably myself included) would have made the attempt to turn back to LaGuardia. Of course, in hindsight, this would have been far riskier.

Prior to US Airways 1549, ditching an airliner in icy water has, for most pilots, been a euphemism for meeting thy maker.
We train for ditching scenarios mostly in ground school, since the simulator can’t really recreate a water landing. In a classroom we cover the emergency equipment, slide and emergency exit operation, safety equipment location and crew member responsibilities every 9 months to a year during our recurrent training.

We’ve been told that a successful ditching is entirely possible, that the airplane will have a rather significant amount of buoyancy, and in fact “may float for a considerable amount of time if intact.”

This Pan Am ditching is a good example of that theory.

In the simulator, we often end our training session with a ‘dead stick’ (engine out) landing at an airport within 50 to 100 miles of our location which is rather realistic. Realistic enough to be sweating by the time you touch down.

Even after being taught about the potential for a successful ditching, most pilots imagine their scenario in the middle of the Atlantic. And this thought has led many of us to consider a successful ditching rather improbable.

Since every pilot has now witnessed how successful a well planned ditching can be, Captain Sullenberger may deserve some credit in the future for saving lives. There haven’t been many recent ditching examples, and certainly none have received more attention than that of US Airways 1549.

I’m sure many pilots would have made attempts to go for the other airports with varying degrees of success. I’m looking forward to running through this exact scenario in the simulator. I’ll be sure to share the excitement of attempting to land at LaGuardia in a future Cockpit Chronicles. In the meantime, you can try your luck using a rather ridiculous web simulation.

My hat’s off to the captain for making this difficult decision, his command of the evacuation and even his presence of mind to retrieve the aircraft logbook after checking for any other passengers before being the last to step onto the slide-raft.

And the rest of the crew?

US Airways has seen an amazing amount of stagnation – more than any other U.S. carrier in the past decade. First officer Jeffrey Skiles has witnessed that first hand. He was previously a captain at the airline but even though he was hired in 1986, his seniority caused him to be bumped back to the right seat during the past 8 years of shrinking.

Skiles immediately jumped into his role as the non-flying pilot after the bird strike caused captain Sullenberger to take over. He turned to the only procedure in the book that might get them out of the situation, a loss of both engines checklist and made every attempt at getting an engine started.

It was a procedure that was designed to be accomplished at a higher altitude with more speed. But who knows; with the right combination of starting the APU (auxiliary power unit used for electricity and the air to start an engine at slower airspeeds) and his relentless attempts at a relight, maybe first officer Skiles would be the hero today.

Every ground evacuation seems to result in either broken bones or, in some cases, fatalities. That’s what makes the water evacuation led by the very experienced flight attendants at US Airways all the more amazing. With no fatalities and minimal injuries to the passengers, flight attendants Shelia Dail, Doreen Welsh and Donna Dent pulled off one of the most challenging procedures in their manual with, by all accounts, the utmost in professionalism.

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 on one of his trips.

Photo of the Day (1/15/09)

From our Gadling group at Flickr comes this shot taken by olyman almost exactly where the USAirways flight 1549 ditched today. I’ve always wanted to kayak around Manhattan, and I probably would have discovered this picture eventually, but with the exciting news that everyone appears to have survived the ditching of the A320 in the Hudson River, I wondered if there was a picture in the Gadling group taken from a a similar vantage point.

Sure enough, this looks like it was taken around the same spot, albeit at a much warmer time of the year.

My hat’s off to the flight attendants and pilots of USAirways 1549.

Are you a Flickr user who’d like to share a travel related picture or two for our consideration? Submit it to Gadling’s Flickr group right now! We just might use it for our Photo of the Day!