Mxsmanic wrote in
:

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.


What a marooon!



Bertie