Aviation Megathread | Now unmoderated due to sequestration

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Aviation Megathread | Now unmoderated due to sequestration

sleepy gary: Jan 11, 2006

Butt Reactor posted:

No joy on the link, try again?

The Buffalo News has recently put up a paywall and their sites are generally a huge pile of poo poo now, but this link *might* work and I assume it is what AWSEFT meant to post: http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130606/CITYANDREGION/130609441/1010

edit: Newspaper piracy:

The Buffalo News posted:

WASHINGTON � Sen. Charles E. Schumer today urged the Federal Aviation Administration to bolster its oversight of regional airlines in wake of a recent Buffalo News report that federal aviation officials warned Colgan Air executives about safety problems six months before the crash of the airline�s Flight 3407 in Clarence in 2009, but failed to follow up on that warning.

In a letter to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, Schumer noted that a National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that the FAA�s principal operations inspector for Colgan was not fully familiar with the model of plane that eventually crashed in Clarence � and that four years later, the FAA still hasn�t bolstered training for its inspectors even though the NTSB has recommended it do so.

�I was saddened and angered by the Buffalo News report that revealed there were serious red flags regarding Colgan Air�s safety before the Flight 3407 crash, and was alarmed to discover that the FAA still has not satisfied the NTSB that their Safety Inspectors have the proper training or knowledge needed to work on the flights to which they are assigned,� said Schumer, D-N.Y.

In the letter, Schumer asked Huerta to explain how the FAA plans to comply with that NTSB recommendation that it bolster training for its inspectors. In addition, Schumer asked Huerta what his agency is doing to make sure that regional airlines are preparing for tougher pilot qualifications and training standards that are on target to be implemented later this year.

�The revelations stemming from this recent Buffalo News report raise important questions about how the FAA and the regional airline industry are addressing a set of recommendations made by the NTSB,� as well as the Department of Transportation�s Inspector General, Schumer wrote to Huerta. �In particular, the news report provides shocking testimony from a former Colgan official that the cost-cutting ways of regional airlines lead to the hiring of inexperienced pilots and lackluster training programs.�

# ? Jun 6, 2013 19:24

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 15, 2024 10:59

KodiakRS: Jul 11, 2012

The FAA is in bed with the airlines, news at 11.

I've heard stories that RAH is having the same problem with the Q400's that Colgon had. They Q400 is apparently a bit of a hanger queen and since RAH has no real experience with it they're having a hell of a time keeping them flying. They also have a limited cadre of experienced instructors so their standards department is still learning the airplane while it's out on the line flying. Hindsight is only 20/20 if you bother to look.

This is one of the things that really pisses me off about the FAA. An airline can have some SERIOUS safety issues and basically get a slap on the wrist from the feds, but they will hit the people who actually work the line with massive sometimes career altering penalties for even the most minor of infractions. It's at the point where pilots are reluctant to self disclose problems they've had in an effort to stay under the FAA radar. I know a number of pilots who recommend NOT filing a NASA form due to the fact that pretty much any action can be considered "Deliberate or intentional" if the FAA wants it to.

# ? Jun 7, 2013 02:17

Ferris Bueller: May 12, 2001; "It is his fault he didn't lock the garage."

KodiakRS posted:

I know a number of pilots who recommend NOT filing a NASA form due to the fact that pretty much any action can be considered "Deliberate or intentional" if the FAA wants it to.

Thank god for ASAP.

# ? Jun 7, 2013 23:41

Dominoes: Sep 20, 2007

babyeatingpsychopath posted:

This is pretty sweet. I use fltplan.com's mobile app, but this lets me pre-load stuff instead of using their somewhat confusing interface.

Has it been working out ok? Any plates you use it couldn't find?

# ? Jun 8, 2013 00:23

CBJSprague24: Dec 5, 2010; another game at nationwide arena. everybody keeps asking me if they can fuck the cannon. buddy, they don't even let me fuck it

Schumer's been trying so hard and making it his personal quest to look like a hero since Colgan 3407 to avenge all those lives lost at the hands of those dastardly regional pilots who can't fly worth a drat*. How does it work behind the scenes in what sounds like a "good ol' boy system"? Will the FAA even give him the time of day?

(*The "dastardly pilots, can't fly worth a drat" comment isn't my opinion at all. It's the stereotype presented by Sully and Schumer to back the ATP law used sarcastically here. The man makes my skin crawl, so I'd get a bit of schadenfreude if Huerta just goes "Pfft" and stuffs it in the shredder.)

CBJSprague24 fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Jun 8, 2013

# ? Jun 8, 2013 01:16

The Slaughter: Jan 28, 2002; cat scratch fever

All done with sim and ground training, next week will be a whole week of flying the 206

wee

# ? Jun 8, 2013 16:55

helno: Jun 19, 2003; hmm now were did I leave that plane

Colonel k posted this in the ultralight thread in DIY but I figure some of you guys might get a kick out of it.

http://vimeo.com/32121344

Some pretty crazy flying going on.

# ? Jun 8, 2013 22:57

sellouts: Apr 23, 2003

Slaughter if you ever make it down to SoCal hit me up.

# ? Jun 9, 2013 03:16

AWSEFT: Apr 28, 2006

DNova posted:

The Buffalo News has recently put up a paywall and their sites are generally a huge pile of poo poo now, but this link *might* work and I assume it is what AWSEFT meant to post: http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130606/CITYANDREGION/130609441/1010

Nope even worse.

Try this one. Its a hard hitting article about the culture Colgan had and how the FAA "intervened". You can't possibly think the airlines aren't in bed with the FAA after reading this.

:alert: In case you hit the paywall, text at the bottom.

KodiakRS posted:

The FAA is in bed with the airlines, news at 11.

I've heard stories that RAH is having the same problem with the Q400's that Colgon had. They Q400 is apparently a bit of a hanger queen and since RAH has no real experience with it they're having a hell of a time keeping them flying. They also have a limited cadre of experienced instructors so their standards department is still learning the airplane while it's out on the line flying. Hindsight is only 20/20 if you bother to look.

Had a couple drinks with the old fleet manager of the Q400s at Colgan. He said that dispatch reliability was poor.

Buffalo News posted:

Colgan warned by FAA about safety prior to 3407 crash
Top official voiced �very serious� safety concerns
--
HOUSTON � Six months before Colgan Air�s Continental Connection Flight 3407 tumbled from the sky and crashed into a home in Clarence, killing 50 people, a key federal aviation official delivered a stern message to Colgan executives.

�I have very serious concerns about the safety culture at Colgan Air,� Nick Scarpinato, director of the Federal Aviation Administration�s flight standards office in Herndon, Va., told executives of the regional airline, according to Dan Morgan, the former vice president of safety and compliance at the regional airline.

�He wanted us to stop virtually everything except the daily operations and immediately bring everybody in and talk to them about safety,� Morgan said in a recent interview near his Houston home. �He said: �I want you to do this right away and if not, I will have to take significant action against your airline.� We, of course, took that to mean that he�d shut us down.�

Former Colgan pilots who asked not to be named confirmed much of what Morgan said about the safety culture at the airline.

In a statement, the FAA confirmed that it had threatened disciplinary action against Colgan in August 2008, including possibly suspending or revoking its operating certificate.

But the FAA never took the tough actions it threatened.

Instead, in response to the FAA warning, Colgan developed a safety presentation that top executives delivered to employees. That presentation didn�t prompt any in-depth review or feedback from Scarpinato or any other FAA official, according to Morgan.

Six months later, on Feb. 12, 2009, Flight 3407 crashed in Clarence, taking 50 lives. Federal investigators blamed the crash on pilot error.

While that tragedy prompted a thorough federal investigation and several congressional hearings and the most far-reaching aviation safety legislation in decades, the story of the FAA�s worries about Colgan remained untold until now.

Other former Colgan officials contacted by The Buffalo News have refused interview requests, but Morgan said he decided to speak out now because he�s still worried that the major airlines continue to contract out many of their flights to low-cost regional operators like Colgan.

In a four-hour interview, Morgan offered several new details about the regional airline industry�s penny-pinching ways, which, he said, stemmed from a �disastrous� business model that, even today, forces the regionals to cut costs at every opportunity to try to be profitable.

For example, Morgan noted the hiring of inexperienced pilots, who sometimes had to work exceptionally long days, and pilot training programs that could have been better.

�I am very troubled by it because I think the lowest-cost operator drives regional airlines to maybe to hold their costs at a minimum, just like we did at Colgan, using minimum training, just enough to get by,� Morgan said.

�Shoestring operation�

The cost-cutting ethos of the regional airlines became clear to Morgan soon after he joined Colgan on Aug. 1, 2008, following a career spent largely at Continental Airlines, then one of the world�s largest.

�It was very � I hate to use the pejorative term � low rent,� Morgan said. �It was really a shoestring operation.�

Morgan immediately noticed that the people in the key roles of director of operations and chief pilot were very young.

So, too, were the pilots. With the airline industry starting to run short on experienced pilots leaving the military and regionals like Colgan paying less than half what pilots would make at the major airlines, Morgan noticed that some of the Colgan pilots were not the same caliber as those at Continental.

�There were some people who towed a banner up and down the beach,� he said. �That was a lot of their commercial aviation experience.�

Less than two weeks after Morgan joined Colgan, Scarpinato called several top Colgan executives in to the FAA�s Flight Standards District Office in Herndon, Va.

The message Scarpinato delivered � that he had serious concerns about Colgan�s safety culture � �was burned into my mind,� Morgan said.

Several of Scarpinato�s concerns involved the maintenance of Colgan�s airplanes. Most notably, a maintenance crew had recently installed a �trim switch� backwards on one of the small Saab planes that Colgan used to fly between small communities.

That was a worry because the trim switch helps control a plane in flight � and because only five years earlier, two Colgan pilots died while trying to reposition a plane from Cape Cod to Albany after a maintenance crew improperly installed a trim cable, causing the plane to lose control and crash just off the shore of Yarmouth, Mass.

The maintenance error on that Saab aircraft was one of the issues troubling Scarpinato.

�FAA officials met with Colgan executives in the summer of 2008, when the airline was expanding its fleet, to discuss recurring maintenance issues identified through FAA surveillance data,� the aviation agency said in a statement. �The FAA officials reviewed open civil penalty cases and raised the possibility of certificate action� � that is, pulling Colgan�s operating license or fining the airline.

FAA criticized

Scarpinato told the Colgan executives to act, Morgan said. In response, the airline developed a PowerPoint presentation that top executives used in meetings with employees all across the country.

When the PowerPoint presentation was completed, Morgan said, he sent a copy to Doug Lundgren, the FAA�s principal operations inspector for Colgan.

Morgan said Lundgren replied with two words: �OK, thanks.�

And that, Morgan said, was the only FAA feedback he got on the safety presentation.

Asked about the lack of feedback, FAA spokesperson Laura J. Brown responded with a statement indicating that the agency�s August 2008 meeting with Colgan executives had its intended effect.

�Subsequent to the meeting, Colgan added staff to operations and maintenance, and FAA data confirmed improvements,� the FAA statement said.

But Morgan offered a different explanation for why there was so little FAA follow-up, and why the slide show attracted no attention during the investigation of the crash of Flight 3407.

The FAA �didn�t want to have to say: �We saw problems in August 2008 and all we did was make them do a slide show,� Morgan said. �There was no way the FAA was going to acknowledge that. That�s why nobody�s ever heard of that.�

Short-staffed everywhere

Morgan�s job was to make Colgan safer, and he and other recently hired Colgan executives worked to do that through the fall of 2008 � only to be shocked at how much they had to do to bring the airline up to what they saw as the industry standard.

�At that point in time in late 2008, there was zero leadership training,� Morgan said. �We really didn�t do leadership training for captains. We didn�t have any kind of review program for first officers.�

Harry Mitchel, then Colgan�s vice president for operations, was working to set that up, while Morgan worked to bolster the voluntary safety programs that were quickly becoming the industry standard.

Mitchel and Morgan were part of a new leadership team that took the reins at Colgan after Pinnacle Airlines, a Memphis-based regional carrier, bought the Virginia-based airline in early 2007.

Founded in 1991 by a Virginia state senator named Charles J. Colgan, Colgan Air was largely a family operation up until the time of the Pinnacle purchase. And to hear Morgan tell it, the airline he joined in 2008 was one that was caught between its old family-business ways and the new reality that it was expanding rapidly.

�We were all pretty shocked to get there and see the lack of experience, the lack of people,� Morgan said.

Colgan was short-staffed everywhere from its corporate offices to its cockpits. Lundgren, the airline�s inspector at the FAA, was adamant that the airline needed to add more people in its flight operations and flight standards offices, Morgan said.

And Scarpinato kept pressing the airline to end its practice of making its pilots reposition empty airplanes to different airports after they were done flying passengers for the day.

While FAA regulations limited passenger airline pilots to eight hours a day of flying time back then, Colgan insisted they could continue flying empty planes once their shift ended under another provision of federal aviation law. The result, one former Colgan pilot told The News, was that some pilots sometimes found themselves working 20-hour shifts.

Under relentless pressure from Scarpinato, Colgan finally abandoned that double-shifting of pilots late in 2008, Morgan said.

�I never did agree� with the practice of working the pilots that hard, Morgan said. �I came out of the union environment at Continental, and we never did that.�

Running short of cash

Colgan found itself under pressure at the time, though, because it was expanding rapidly. It had contracted with Continental to fly a new and larger plane, the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, between larger markets.

By mid-2008, Colgan had 15 new Q400s and about 150 new pilots � all of which made Morgan, the vice president for safety, a little apprehensive.

�I thought the training was rushed through� for the pilots who were flying the Q400, Morgan said. �But it met the minimum requirements, and the FAA approved it. The training met standards, but you just had a lot of people to train.�

Colgan had to get those new planes online in order to get paid by Continental, but once that happened, the smaller airline encountered another, bigger problem. Somehow Colgan had locked itself into a contract with Continental that made Q400 flights big money-losers for the smaller airline.

Always a bare-bones operation, Colgan now on occasion found itself running short on cash.

�There was more than one occasion in that fall of 2008 when Harry Mitchel had to give his credit card number to some captain somewhere to buy gas, because some station we were flying to hadn�t been paid and they weren�t going to give us any gas,� Morgan said.

Mitchel did not respond to an interview request, but a former Colgan pilot confirmed that the airline executive had to buy jet fuel on his credit card on occasion. Similarly, the pilot said, at one point a contractor in Syracuse refused to de-ice a Colgan plane because the company hadn�t paid its bills.

Crash ended safety illusion

In spite of all of Colgan�s cash troubles, Morgan said: �At 10:20 p.m. on Feb. 12, 2009, I thought we were a very safe airline.�

After all, Colgan was complying with FAA rules and bolstering its safety programs.

At 10:24 that night, though, Morgan�s phone rang. It was Colgan�s director of security, reporting that one of the airline�s planes may have just crashed near Buffalo.

At the time, Morgan shared a northern Virginia house with Mitchel and Buddy Casey, Colgan�s president. After telling them what happened, Morgan began making arrangements to pull a Colgan plane out of passenger service to ferry the executives to Buffalo as quickly as possible.

Once again, Colgan�s cost-cutting culture came into play, at the worst possible moment: Another Colgan executive, whom Morgan declined to name publicly, suggested that the leadership team take the cheaper route and wait for a commercial flight to Buffalo at 6 a.m.

�It just verified for me everything from the past few months, that everything was on a shoestring,� Morgan said. �We�re so afraid to pull a plane out of revenue service for a crash?�

Thankfully, Morgan said, Pinnacle Airlines President Philip Trenary insisted that the Colgan executives get to Buffalo on a company plane as soon as possible.

There, the executives met with the families of the victims and worked with the National Transportation Safety Board as it began an investigation that eventually reached a damning conclusion.

Flight 3407�s co-pilot, Rebecca Shaw, had misprogrammed an important switch on the controls of the Q400. After a stall warning, pilot Marvin Renslow reacted in exactly the wrong fashion and, in essence, crashed the plane.

Federal investigators found that Shaw was not trained in programming that switch and that Renslow did not have simulator training in the plane�s stall-recovery equipment.

On top of that, the voice data recorder revealed that the crew was talking about issues that had nothing to do with the flight. In addition, Shaw was yawning repeatedly, and the investigation revealed that neither pilot had a full night of bed rest before the crash.

Because of the pending legal action stemming from the crash, Morgan said he could not comment on the causes.

But he said the crash led to a stark reckoning within Colgan.

�Our safety culture probably didn�t do enough to push for following the rules as stringently as we should,� he acknowledged. �Not that we weren�t pushing: we did have safety programs, but those programs were still in development,� in part at Pinnacle�s behest.

Morgan said the crash led to a quick boost to Colgan�s safety culture.

Morgan left Pinnacle in January 2012 when a new management team came in, only to watch from afar as Pinnacle sunk into bankruptcy. Pinnacle abandoned the Colgan name last year and is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Airlines. Pinnacle announced Friday it was renaming itself Endeavor Air.

Flights go to lowest bidder

Looking back at it all, Morgan, who is now 63 and retired, sees the Colgan/Pinnacle saga as a cautionary one for the airline industry.

He said the major airlines� continuing practice of bidding out many of their flights to regional airlines poses a problem because, invariably, those flights go to the lowest bidder.

�What makes this so potentially dangerous is that if you don�t cut your costs, somebody else will,� Morgan said.

Legislation passed in wake of the crash of Flight 3407 has already led to tougher rules aimed at curbing pilot fatigue, and pending rules will boost pilot training and experience requirements.

The new fatigue and training rules are important, Morgan said.

�As long as there is a minimum to get by, somebody�s going to be at the minimum to get by,� Morgan said. �You raise the minimum, somebody�s going to be at the minimum, but at least everybody�s going to do a little more now.�

Still, Morgan worries that regional airlines don�t do enough to meet the lofty safety standards of the major airlines � and the majors don�t force their partners to do so.

For example, he recalled that a top safety official at one major airline was happy to give Colgan information � but he refused to review Colgan�s safety programs.

�When an airline doesn�t want to have liability, they will not get involved in oversight, because then it would be shown legally that well, you came in, you looked at the programs, you didn�t find anything wrong, or if you did, you didn�t say anything,� Morgan explained.

That means it�s up to the nation�s regional airlines to improve safety standards largely on their own � which, Morgan said, is just what Colgan was trying to do before Flight 3407 crashed.

�We were taking steps,� Morgan said. �We were trying very hard to move this airline down the road and make it a really good professional airline. We didn�t get there in time.�

AWSEFT fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Jun 9, 2013

# ? Jun 9, 2013 21:57

azflyboy: Nov 9, 2005

AWSEFT posted:

Nope even worse.

Try this one. Its a hard hitting article about the culture Colgan had and how the FAA "intervened". You can't possibly think the airlines aren't in bed with the FAA after reading this.

:alert: In case you hit the paywall, text at the bottom.

Had a couple drinks with the old fleet manager of the Q400s at Colgan. He said that dispatch reliability was poor.

Does anyone know what the article was referring to when it said the FO "misprogrammed an important switch"?

I was under the impression that the only thing the FO did during the accident sequence that involved a switch was to retract the flaps for undetermined reasons.

# ? Jun 9, 2013 22:19

SCOTLAND: Feb 26, 2004

They are talking about the switch you turn on in icing conditions that adds 20kts or so to stall speeds.

# ? Jun 9, 2013 22:25

KodiakRS: Jul 11, 2012

This reminds me of some of the things said in Congress post ValuJet

Congress posted:

We want to make absolutely sure that we don't just make cosmetic changes, but real changes and effective changes that solve the problems that exist.

Well that sounds like a good idea to me!

Congress posted:

The FAA has only recently discovered the extent of the problems at ValuJet. That being the case, then the question arises: where has the FAA been all this time? Why didn't the FAA's regular inspection program uncover these problems? Why didn't the special 120-day inspection program uncover these problems? Why did it take a crash, 110 deaths, and an intense 30-day inspection and intense media and Congressional scrutiny to uncover these problems?

Some very good questions there Mr. Congressman!

Congress posted:

We need somehow to strike a balance to make sure that we don't over-regulate the aviation industry in this country so that we end up with just one or two large airlines and no others, because then we will force the price of air travel up so much that we would force millions of Americans back onto our already overcrowded and much less-safe highways.

Oh, alright. We'll forsake safety in the name of competition and let the race to the bottom continue. I'm sure that if we let things continue the way they're going half of the legacy airlines won't merge to form 3 giant carriers. Right?

# ? Jun 9, 2013 22:27

CBJSprague24: Dec 5, 2010; another game at nationwide arena. everybody keeps asking me if they can fuck the cannon. buddy, they don't even let me fuck it

Golly gee, I see the word "training" quite a bit in that article.

I have a friend who flew for Colgan on the Q400 for a short period of time and, while I never really got into details with him, liked it so much that he quit, told me "Don't go to the airlines." and came home to do more instructing. Fortunately for him, he found a corporate flying job not long after, though it sounds like he's not too much happier.

quote:

We need somehow to strike a balance to make sure that we don't over-regulate the aviation industry in this country so that we end up with just one or two large airlines and no others, because then we will force the price of air travel up so much that we would force millions of Americans back onto our already overcrowded and much less-safe highways.

Heh. This happened anyway. The same government didn't over-regulate, but did allow three mega-mergers which pared the Big Six into a Big Three plus Southwest, which ate AirTran up for something to do. Oh, and Midwest and Frontier merged and the whole thing's now owned by a regional airline. :downsbravo:

CBJSprague24 fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Jun 10, 2013

# ? Jun 10, 2013 06:11

Animal: Apr 8, 2003

CBJSprague24 posted:

I have a friend who flew for Colgan on the Q400 for a short period of time and, while I never really got into details with him, liked it so much that he quit, told me "Don't go to the airlines." and came home to do more instructing. Fortunately for him, he found a corporate flying job not long after, though it sounds like he's not too much happier.

He should not have joined a crap regional. I am one month shy from my first year in my regional, and, brutal first year pay aside, I have had a positive experience. Training was excellent, the company is diligent, and the pilot group has been great so far.

# ? Jun 10, 2013 16:15

Ferris Bueller: May 12, 2001; "It is his fault he didn't lock the garage."

CBJSprague24 posted:

Oh, and Midwest and Frontier merged and the whole thing's now owned by a regional airline.

They didn't merge, our dumb ceo bought the two airlines thinking combining two failed business models into one would be a winner :rolleyes:

Good by profit sharing checks, hello Frontier pilot group that forgets who bought who.

Animal posted:

He should not have joined a crap regional. I am one month shy from my first year in my regional, and, brutal first year pay aside, I have had a positive experience. Training was excellent, the company is diligent, and the pilot group has been great so far.

This, even at Chautauqua they have a sense of how rare it is not to have a crash in company history, and while there have been close calls, they seem to value safety over the dollar.

Ferris Bueller fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Jun 10, 2013

# ? Jun 10, 2013 23:05

AWSEFT: Apr 28, 2006

Any leads on pilot jobs in NC or FL?

I've been searching for 2 years without any luck.

# ? Jun 11, 2013 23:30

azflyboy: Nov 9, 2005

AWSEFT posted:

Any leads on pilot jobs in NC or FL?

I've been searching for 2 years without any luck.

I've seen a few flight instructor jobs pop up in FL over the last few months, but I'm guessing you're looking for something slight better than "flying piston single with foreign student trying to kill me".

# ? Jun 12, 2013 00:33

AWSEFT: Apr 28, 2006

azflyboy posted:

I've seen a few flight instructor jobs pop up in FL over the last few months, but I'm guessing you're looking for something slight better than "flying piston single with foreign student trying to kill me".

Indeed. Figured with this kind of time a new job would be easy. Ha, can't get a call from anyone.

# ? Jun 12, 2013 00:43

MrYenko: Jun 18, 2012; #2 isn't ALWAYS bad...

azflyboy posted:

I've seen a few flight instructor jobs pop up in FL over the last few months, but I'm guessing you're looking for something slight better than "flying piston single with foreign student trying to kill me".

Florida flight schools also prefer you to check the box for "Willing to live in my own car, which will be parked at the FBO, and take all the students flying at the rear end-crack weird times of day."

# ? Jun 12, 2013 00:48

Shavnir: Apr 5, 2005; A MAN'S DREAM CAN NEVER DIE

So spin entries are scary. My respect for the CFI in this thread (at least I believe that's where that maneuver comes into play) has doubled.

# ? Jun 13, 2013 02:33

Desi: Jul 5, 2007; This.
Changes.
EVERYTHING.

Shavnir posted:

So spin entries are scary. My respect for the CFI in this thread (at least I believe that's where that maneuver comes into play) has doubled.

Spins are fun as poo poo once you understand them. I won't go entering them intentionally just for kicks or anything, but in Canada you are required to demonstrate a recovery from an instructor-induced spin during PPL training and induce one yourself an recover for CPL. Most fun I had during flight training, aside from the first solo! Respect that poo poo, don't fear it.

# ? Jun 13, 2013 03:51

Unicom: Mar 29, 2006

Spins were the best part of my training. Although seeing nothing but ground through the windshield is a little bit unnerving.

# ? Jun 13, 2013 05:12

Stupid Post Maker: Jan 8, 2008

Solo spins for my CFI was the most fun I've had during my training

# ? Jun 13, 2013 10:36

sleepy gary: Jan 11, 2006

Another vote for "spins are awesome" here.

# ? Jun 13, 2013 12:55

CBJSprague24: Dec 5, 2010; another game at nationwide arena. everybody keeps asking me if they can fuck the cannon. buddy, they don't even let me fuck it

Flying backwards (or being suspended in one place) is more fun than spinning. I did that on a windy December day in a 152.

Slow flight, into the wind, cue up the "truck backing up" noise.

Unicom posted:

Spins were the best part of my training. Although seeing nothing but ground through the windshield is a little bit unnerving.

My first CFI was supposed to demonstrate a stall to imminent and, in his own words, "got a bit overzealous".

The next thing I knew, we were pointed straight down, looking at a sewage treatment plant about a mile below us.

# ? Jun 13, 2013 18:08

xaarman: Mar 12, 2003; IRONKNUCKLE PERMABANNED! READ HERE

The more I read about 3407's crash, the more I think they just massively failed at a go around. They put the flaps to a takeoff oriented position (I don't know the specifics), pushed up the throttle to 75% and kept raising the nose. I think it's an example of expectations and complacency that really did them in.

Also, a related note.... going... going... and gone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtlS0sxFlHk

# ? Jun 13, 2013 18:09

KodiakRS: Jul 11, 2012

DNova posted:

Another vote for "spins are awesome" here.

Oh yeah Baby. The most fun you can (legally) have with an airplane without wearing a chute. During my CFI training we pretty much rolled a 172 doing spins. My instructor would take the entry to a certain point and then yell "recover" somewhere in the incipient spin. At one point he managed to stop the incipient spin when we were more or less inverted and I just recovered by keeping the nose pitched waaaaaaay down and rolling the rest of the way out. It certainly wouldn't have won any aerobatic competitions but I still consider it a "roll."

One of the most enlightening things about spin training was when my instructor had me do a simulated base-final overshoot with a sloppy increase in bank and increase in back pressure to compensate. It was a pretty dramatic demonstration of how quickly things can get out of hand and just how much altitude you'd lose in the recovery. I think every student pilot should have the opportunity to go through that just to see what it's like and how quickly you run out of AOA in a 45+ degree turn at low speed.

# ? Jun 13, 2013 18:20

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

xaarman posted:

The more I read about 3407's crash, the more I think they just massively failed at a go around. They put the flaps to a takeoff oriented position (I don't know the specifics), pushed up the throttle to 75% and kept raising the nose. I think it's an example of expectations and complacency that really did them in.

Also, a related note.... going... going... and gone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtlS0sxFlHk

Is 75% throttle ever appropriate for a go around in that plane?

Also thats an amazing video

# ? Jun 13, 2013 18:22

sleepy gary: Jan 11, 2006

xaarman posted:

The more I read about 3407's crash, the more I think they just massively failed at a go around. They put the flaps to a takeoff oriented position (I don't know the specifics), pushed up the throttle to 75% and kept raising the nose. I think it's an example of expectations and complacency that really did them in.

Also, a related note.... going... going... and gone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtlS0sxFlHk

They were not attempting a go around. They were on approach. The causes of 3407 are at this point quite well known.

# ? Jun 13, 2013 18:27

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

DNova posted:

They were not attempting a go around. They were on approach. The causes of 3407 are at this point quite well known.

Ok reading the report http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2010/aar1001.pdf
:psyduck:

sums it all up.

# ? Jun 13, 2013 18:43

Gisnep: Mar 29, 2010

Has anyone else received one of those unsolicited "Ultimate Aviation DVD Series" DVDs in the mail, for which they later attempt to bill you?

I think it's a shady practice, and I'm trying to figure out who shared my mailing address with them. I know they didn't get it from the FAA database, since the FAA doesn't even have this address. I suspect it's either AOPA or Aviation Consumer since they are the only ones I've given this address, but they both deny it. Anyone else have any ideas?

# ? Jun 14, 2013 02:41

Animal: Apr 8, 2003

One of the things I hate about the aviation community is all the spam.

gently caress you AOPA.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 02:53

babyeatingpsychopath: Oct 28, 2000; Forum Veteran

KodiakRS posted:

One of the most enlightening things about spin training was when my instructor had me do a simulated base-final overshoot with a sloppy increase in bank and increase in back pressure to compensate. It was a pretty dramatic demonstration of how quickly things can get out of hand and just how much altitude you'd lose in the recovery. I think every student pilot should have the opportunity to go through that just to see what it's like and how quickly you run out of AOA in a 45+ degree turn at low speed.

Yup. My simulated was an overshoot, straight out. We entered the stall so gently, we were 20 nose up, 1500fpm descent, no buffeting, and no loss of aileron authority. Nose down, full power, wait for positive rate, flaps up. Only 200' loss, but if that had happened on climbout, there only would have been 200'. Positive rate would have been racing with terrain; hopefully we can react to REAL EPs as fast as we did during checkrides.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 03:26

xaarman: Mar 12, 2003; IRONKNUCKLE PERMABANNED! READ HERE

hobbesmaster posted:

Is 75% throttle ever appropriate for a go around in that plane?

Also thats an amazing video

Nope, but I've been tired and thought I pushed the throttle up more than I actually did.

DNova posted:

They were not attempting a go around. They were on approach. The causes of 3407 are at this point quite well known.

I get that they stalled it into the ground... but if you're tired, flying with a crew you think you know, power pushed up, flaps in a TO position and trying to climb, it's quite an aggressive position.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 04:30

Animal: Apr 8, 2003

Wasn't he on the left seat with less than 200 hours on type?

# ? Jun 14, 2013 04:43

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

Animal posted:

Wasn't he on the left seat with less than 200 hours on type?

Yes. Bonus incompetence:

NTSB posted:

22 Colgan could not explain the discrepancy between the captain�s total number of hours on the Q400 (111 hours) and his flight time during the 90 days that preceded the accident (116 hours). There is no record of the captain flying an airplane other than the Q400 during the 90 days before the accident.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 04:50

fknlo: Jul 6, 2009; Fun Shoe

Just worked solar impulse for the last hour and a half on his way east out of st. Louis. Holy hell that thing is slooooow. The guy flying it is very nice though.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 14:36

Animal: Apr 8, 2003

fknlo posted:

Just worked solar impulse for the last hour and a half on his way east out of st. Louis. Holy hell that thing is slooooow. The guy flying it is very nice though.

43 mph... even a glider goes faster!

# ? Jun 14, 2013 14:45

fknlo: Jul 6, 2009; Fun Shoe

Animal posted:

43 mph... even a glider goes faster!

He was doing 26kts. I think he started to pick it as he climbed to 7000 to get better radar coverage.

# ? Jun 14, 2013 14:56

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 15, 2024 10:59

The Slaughter: Jan 28, 2002; cat scratch fever

I am enjoying my new job although there is a lot of time sitting around in the hotel, so if I can find a way to make the best of it (work out, play video games) I think I will be really drat happy here. I've got maybe 6 hours in the C206 now, did a bunch of landings and approaches today, it is the most nose heavy airplane I have ever flown but it isn't too tough to land nicely, you just have to flare it until your arms feel like they're going to fall off and they're in terrible pain. Some guys use the electric trim in the flare I guess and put it all the way back but that worries me in case you need to go around that you'd be at risk of trim stalling it unless you push forward really hard. I'd rather just muscle it. As a side note, I really don't like electric trim, but my trainer is forcing me to use it because it's new and I need to be proficient in everything in the airplane, and I guess he thinks the more I use it the more I'll get used to it. I don't like it because I don't know how much it's moving the trim wheel and I feel really "disconnected" from the trim and find it tough to get just the right setting. Grasping the trim wheel is so tangible and you can make such fine corrections. Also, developing a scan for glass is taking a bit of time although my approaches were OK but at times I'd be +-120 ft or so on altitude because I was messing with a checklist or something.

# ? Jun 15, 2013 23:19

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Aviation Megathread | Now unmoderated due to sequestration

«‹›97 »