TheSmokingGnu writes:

There are 14 airports alone in the Paris metropolitan area ...

Yes, but they are all in the suburbs.

... and Orly is like a hop, skip, and a bus ride away.

It's more than an hour away, and I don't think it welcomes general aviation.

Ha, I'm just trying to imagine the (very colorful) language the LAX
controllers would use to tell me that my landing clearance was denied;
they get mad enough when you encroach on their outlying space, much less
trying to use it whilst the 744's fly past.

Why would they deny you landing clearance?

And, Van Nuys isn't all that great for GA training.

It's a lot better than Orly.

So why worry about it?

That's what I ask. The FAA worries excessively about the wrong things.

Besides, medicals aren't excuses to skip regular checkups with your
normal physician, which *DOES* pick up this sort of thing.

No, regular check-ups won't pick it up, either. It's often the sort of thing
you must be looking for.

If you're red/green colorblind, how can you tell which navigation light
is on which wing, and what direction and heading is that aircraft off
the left wing going?

By the way the lights move in relation to each other.

However, most people with red-green color blindness have deuteranomaly or
protanomaly, which means that they can still see red and green, but it is more
difficult for them than it is for normal people (and they see them slightly
differently, although they may still be distinct).

Ok, different situation. You go NORDO because some very key widget in
the radio bus decides to burn out. What light signal did the tower just
give you? Was it "clear to land" or "hold and circle"? What do you mean
you can't tell the difference between the lights?

Just make sure you carry a handheld.

And the list goes on and on. Color is key to flight.

Hardly. There are a handful of situations in which it matters. Usually it
doesn't.

It's the danger of living that attracts people to flying. The knowledge
that at some random moment, they may break down and actually experience
something worth remembering instead of sitting indoors and pounding away
endlessly at the keyboard.

That may be true for _some_ pilots, but certainly not all. There are many
potential attractions to flying, and not everyone is looking for adventure.

The danger of death comes with every activity in our lives, from flying
to breathing.

In which case there's nothing special about flying. You undermine your own
argument.

I can. Can you?

Nobody can.

It's part and parcel of unusual attitude training.

It's not part of flight.

If you don't feel it, it's because you're not sensitive to it; the
airline pilot's thus being so (rather, MORE sensitive) are able to
maintain aircraft positioning without disturbing or alerting the paying
curmudgeons in the back to their maneuvering. QED.

No, they don't feel it either, or I should say, they don't feel it any more
than the passengers do. Everyone is in the same aircraft.

Thus proving the worth (or lack thereof) of simulation as applicable to
real world operation.

You watch the waypoints click by both in simulation and in real life.

I'm sorry, I thought all of flight was formula, and hard fact.

It is, in theory, but that doesn't mean that everyone does the calculations.

I thought, you being such an expert in the operation of the 737-800 (as
you profess), that you could give me precise performance figures given a
complete scenario. I guess YOU AREN'T UP TO THE TASK.

No, I just know that the 737-800 does this for me, thanks to being familiar
with the aircraft. The AFDS turns the aircraft, not I.

And the answer is: it's a trick question. You don't know your current
heading, and so you don't know how far away you are from your intended
course. Even if you did know that, the answer is variable (do you start
the rollout immediately from your current heading? Do you start when 30
degrees abeam? Do you start as you pass it?). The real answer is:
enough. Enough so that the aircraft is operated in a smooth manner, with
a minimum of surface deflection, in an expeditious manner, with as
little error as possible. That is flying, and it's VISCERAL, not calculable.

Clearly, tin-can pilots predominate here. I'm reminded of a rower in crew who
claims that a cruise-ship captain steers the ship by the feel of the oars in
his hands.

That's the way YOU choose to fly the aircraft. The plane is, first and
foremost, flown by hand, by pilots, with training and experience.

No, it is not. Almost all of the average commercial flight is flown by the
FMC. The pilots typically only fly take-off and landing; and in low
visibility, they may use the autoland feature to have the aircraft land itself
as well.

Heaven forbid he should find out the lateral-G load of the unexpected
maneuver prevents him from reaching that critical switch which completes
the sequence, eh?

There are very few emergencies that involve such forces. Large airliners are
only sound to about 2.5 Gs or so. A G force great enough to prevent him from
reaching a switch may well be enough to snap the wings off also, so there's
not much point in worrying about it.

Heaven forbid he should feel the buffet in the controls of the oncoming
stall, which his instrument cluster failed to report to him due to a
blocked static port, eh?

His instruments warn him of critical angle of attack long before he comes
anywhere near it. It is unlikely to ever reach the buffer or even
stick-shaker stage if he is watching his instruments.

Like, say, a high-G turn. QED.

He won't (read: can't) be making any turns of more than 2.5 Gs or so.
Airliners are not fighter planes.

Your left engine falls off (wasn't properly reattached by the
groundcrew). You're now 2000+ lbs. out of list, have heavy yaw from the
operating engine, losing all sorts of other systems (like the hydraulics
that move your ailerons and flaps), generally getting a wicked shimmy,
AND you have no idea what just happened.

Guess it was your fault for letting it go that far, eh?

You can train for that in the sim.

Your failure to spot the satire is very telling.

Your conversion of a mistake to "satire" is noted.

That seems to be a recurring theme with you.

Not really; but if I don't know, I'm not afraid to say so.

I thought you were experienced enough to make edicts on procedure and
operation?

I'm experienced enough to make some statements with a high level of certainty,
but not others.

What happened to your burst of confidence?

Confidence is what allows me to admit when I don't know. People who never say
that they don't know are insecure liars.

Emergency procedures are some of the FIRST things you should learn, and
THE FIRST thing you should have memorized before stepping into the
cockpit.

Normal procedures first; then emergencies.

Engine out is a big one, because you can loose a compressor to
AOA on takeoff, or if you get a bird, or if your fuel system isn't
configured properly (or not functioning properly in the first place).

If you haven't learned to fly an aircraft normally, you won't be able to learn
how to fly it abnormally.

Losing an engine means lots of complicated, sometimes counter-intuitive
(and hand-flown) procedures. And you don't ****ing know.

I know part of it, but I don't practice it much. I don't have to deal with
failures in simulation, and I don't plan to fly for real, so such exercises
are academic, and I undertake them only out of curiosity.

I promised myself that I wouldn't do intellectual battle with an unarmed
opponent, but in your case, you're already running with scissors, naked
through a field of cactus.

If that were true, you wouldn't have to resort to personal attacks. I don't.

--
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