Q&A With the Pilot, Volume 6
AN OLD-TIMEY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SESSION.
Eons ago, in 2002, a column called Ask the Pilot, hosted by yours truly, started running in the online magazine Salon, in which I fielded reader-submitted questions about air travel. It’s a good idea, I think, to touch back now and then on the format that got this venerable enterprise started. It’s Ask the Pilot classic, if you will.
Q: I appreciated your rant about excessive public address announcements at airports and during flight. However, announcements from the cockpit can’t escape attention. Seriously, can some of your fellow pilots please stay quiet? We get what we need from the cabin crew; we don’t need the pilots piling on.
I’m okay with pilot PAs so long as they are professional-sounding, informational, jargon-free and brief.
I make one prior to departure. I say our names, then I give the flight time (I always round the minutes to zero or five), the approximate arrival time, and maybe a short description of the arrival weather. The whole thing takes fifteen seconds.
The names part is just to remind people that actual human beings are driving their plane. There’s such a disconnect between the cabin and cockpit; most passengers never even lay eyes on the individuals taking them across the country or across the ocean.
I do not start in with, “It’s a great day for flyin,’ and we’ve got eight of our best flight attendants back there for your safety and comfort,” blah blah blah. That style of folky-hokey chatter is embarrassing.
Q: When I fly, I always love the ka-thunk sound of landing gear coming down, as it signals we’re almost to our destination. Sometimes I notice it comes down much closer to touchdown than other times. Why?
Planes normally drop their landing gear at around 2,000 feet above the ground, or when passing what we call the “final approach fix.” That’s maybe three minutes from touchdown, give or take. But it varies, depending on airspeed, spacing with other traffic, and so on. Lowering the gear has a significant aerodynamic impact, mainly in the adding of wind resistance (that is, drag). Sometimes we drop it early to help slow down.
I remember going into JFK early one morning. The controllers initially kept us high and fast, then suddenly gave us a “slam dunk” clearance straight to the runway. We put the gear out at like 5,000 feet to slow down and increase our descent to the maximum possible rate. No pilot likes doing this, as it’s noisy and maybe a little disconcerting for passengers. But under the circumstances, it worked great.
At most carriers the policy is to have the gear down and the plane fully configured for landing no later than a thousand feet above the ground. The idea is to minimize power and pitch adjustments and maintain what pilots call a “stabilized approach.”
Q: And please cure this stupid irrational fear once and for all: could pilots ever forget to deploy the landing gear? What are the safeguards to ensure this doesn’t happen?
Verifying that the gear is down and locked is one of the checklist items prior to landing. There are also configuration warnings that will sound if the plane passes a certain altitude without the gear (or wing flaps) in the correct position.
On top of all that, if you still somehow managed to forget, the whole picture would look and feel wrong. The plane’s attitude would be off, the power settings would be strange, the sounds would be different.
Pilots of small private planes are known to land with their gear up from time to time, but I can’t imagine this happening in a commercial jet.
Q: I recently flew on a 737-900, in row 13. I was surprised to find that there was no window in this row, although there was ample space for one. Why?
You see this on a lot of planes. Usually it’s because there’s some sort of internal component — ducting, framing, or some other structural assembly — that doesn’t allow space for a window. Some turboprops are missing a window directly adjacent to the propeller blades, and you’ll find a strip of reinforced plating there instead. This is to prevent damage if, during icing conditions, the blades shed chunks of ice.
Q: I often listen in to air traffic control on the internet. On the approach control frequencies, pilots will call in and identify themselves “with” a character from the phonetic alphabet. For example, “Approach this is United 515 at ten thousand with Alpha or “Approach United 827, five thousand feet with Uniform.” What does this mean?
Every airport puts out a broadcast that gives the current weather, approaches and runways in use, and assorted other info particular to the airport at that moment (some of it, to be honest, unnecessary). This broadcast, called ATIS (automatic terminal information service), is identified phonetically between A and Z.
On initial contact with approach control (or with ground or clearance control when departing), pilots are asked to report in with the most current letter, verifying they’ve listened to the broadcast and have an idea of what’s going on. Each time something is updated, the broadcast advances to the next letter. I will call in “with Sierra,” and the annoyed controller will snap back, “Information Tango is now up.”
I use the words “broadcast,” and “listened to,” because traditionally crews would tune to a radio frequency for ATIS, and transcribe its highlights onto a slip of paper. Nowadays, at most larger airports, it’s delivered through a cockpit datalink printout or is pulled up on our iPads.
For no useful reason, much of the typical ATIS report is abbreviated and coded using all kinds of nonstandard shorthand, and takes some deciphering. Aviation is frustratingly averse to the use of actual words, preferring instead a soup of acronyms and gibberish. I mean, it’s not the 1950s anymore and we aren’t using teletype machines to communicate.
Q: Tell us something weird?
What’s weird is that I haven’t been to a rock concert in thirteen years.
That’s super weird, really, considering how deeply into music I once was, and how many hundreds of concerts I attended. I can’t explain why, exactly, but I developed a later-in-life disdain for live performances. They suddenly felt goofy and weird to me: Am I watching or listening? Where do I stand? And none of the songs sound right.
You’ll tell me I’m just getting old Whatever the reason, I stopped going, even when the musicians are ones I love.
My last time at a show was in 2010, when I went to see Grant Hart in Cambridge. Prior to that we go all the way back to 2004, when I saw the Mountain Goats, also in Cambridge. Both times I was on the guest list, which made the idea of a night out more appealing. I’m not sure I would’ve gone otherwise. (Somewhere in there was Curtis Eller the banjo guy, and some symphonies, but those don’t count.)
That said, I’m told by a reader that the Bob Mould show in New Hampshire a couple of weeks ago was great, and at least half of the songs he played were classics from the Hüsker Dü canon. I wanna say that I wished I’d gone (the last time I watched Mould play live was in 1995). I was in Tanzania on vacation, so my excuse is solid, but even if I’d been home I may not have done it.
Concerts are one thing, but worst of the worst is any kind of live music in a bar or restaurant. There’s almost nothing I hate more. At least at a concert you’re there because, presumably, you enjoy the music of the artist you’re seeing. The music in a bar may or may not be anything you like. It’s intrusive, and conversation becomes difficult.
Here I’ll make this airline-related: On layovers in Accra, Ghana, I used to love hanging out at the poolside bar at the Novotel. It was such a chill place, with the most relaxing vibe. Then they brought in a piano player. Now the racket made talking almost impossible. He’d sing, too, and the beer mugs would crack when he hit the high notes. I had to find a new place.
EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO patricksmith@askthepilot.com
Related Stories:
Q&A WITH THE PILOT, Volume 1
Q&A WITH THE PILOT, Volume 2
Q&A WITH THE PILOT, Volume 3
Q&A WITH THE PILOT, Volume 4
Q&A WITH THE PILOT, Volume 5
Q&A WITH THE PILOT, Volume 6
Q&A WITH THE PILOT, COVID EDITION
Portions of this post appeared previously in the magazine Salon.
PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
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25 Responses to “Q&A With the Pilot, Volume 6”
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Thanks for the update on Logan Terminal E. (No comment capacity on that story). I was an NWA million-miler based out of Boston back in the 90s and spent a lot of time in their weird little club that was on a lower level directly beneath a gate. Any idea if that club is still there? I no longer live in Boston so haven’t been inside Terminal E since 1997 I think…
There’s an easy fix to solve Bill’s complaint about all the “boring shit” you publish Patrick. He can go read something else he finds interesting. As a bonus, those of us who enjoy your writing won’t have a curmudgeon damping our chill.
Give live music a chance again and see what you think! The bands we loved are having a great time touring. They’re older, relaxed, and having a blast on stage in smaller, easygoing venues. We’ve recently seen O.A.R., Guster, Squeeze, Dispatch… we were close to seeing Bob Mould but unfortunately missed him.
Please continue making announcements to the passengers. It helps my anxiety to know that there is a real person, awake, in the cockpit.
I also like to know when we are flying over something interesting like the grand canyon
Thank you
Patrick,
In response to your reply to Bill Combs’ whinge…
It is not boring shit.
Bill Combs should perhaps read something else, like that Indian guy who uses ChatGPT to copy-and-paste stuff about planes on Quora and beg for likes.
When you do post stuff on here, I am always pleased, and it is always interesting, original and thought-provoking. It gives a completely different point of view on aviation to anything else that I read.
Thank you for doing it.
Thanks, Wilson.
Modern planes being limited to 6,000 feet would make sense: that must be why I never seem to be high enough to see the edge of the flat earth.
Bruce of October 31, 2023 at 11:42 pm:
You don’t see those air intakes (and the compressors just to the rear of them, under the sheet metal)((B-707, DC-8 (chin), et al)) nowadays because modern airliners are altitude-limited to 6,000 feet (1,828,000 millimeters) and don’t really need the cabin to be pressurized. It’s a way to reduce complexity and costs to the airlines. Instead these pilots hand out bags of peanuts. And blankies. Solved.
Hi Patrick,
Sorry – I have a Q, so I’ll put it in here and hope for an A, since, understandably, there isn’t a comments section under the Express Blog.
In the graphic for the “Remembering the 707” article, there’s a picture of an engine and a wing.
There’s a hole in the front of the pylon, above the engine intake. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed anything like that on a modern jet. And I can’t think what it could be for. I’m really intrigued – please could you tell me what it is?
I dunno…the older and crankier I get seems to parallel your career. Nothing I’ve read here over the past five years or so has been remotely interesting. Except your meaningless diatribes about airlines’ livery.
Bill, that’s so kind of you.
Not even “remotely” interesting? Damn.
I dunno. Maybe if Google hadn’t banned me from its advertising platform (for reasons it refused to disclose), and I could make even a dime from this site, I’d have a stronger motivation to put together the kind of quality posts that even Bill Combs would enjoy.
Until then, more boring shit.
Since this is sort of a Q&A, can you talk to us a bit about taxi speeds? Had a trip this summer where a near full 777 crawled out to the end of the runway at SFO, after 15 minutes it had me rolling my eyes saying “you can’t taxi to europe”, then on the return the totally full 777 from Frankfurt was hauling ass taxiing, doing what felt like 30-40 mph (had a window seat). What are the rules, if any, around taxi speeds?
In 1976, at the age of nineteen, I was finishing up a tumultuous year abroad with an NGO in S. Sudan – the first variant of Ebola showed up during my tenure and the entire country was put under quarantine.
Heading home at xmas, one might imagine, was highly anticipated. When I arrived in Khartoum to catch my flight, a coup attempt was under way and most flights were canceled. Groups of desperate would-be travelers dashed from airline counter to airline counter, hoping against hope to find a way home. Finally, I found a seat on Sudan Air to Cairo and snapped it up.
Just a couple hours flight time, I seem to recall, but upon preparing to land in Cairo, the landing gear began lifting up and down repeatedly. I’ll never know for sure, but I assumed that it wouldn’t lock in place. We circled round Cairo for at least ten minutes as the motors for the gear lifted and lowered. Finally, with every passenger gripping their seat armrests, the jet came down for a remarkably violent landing, jouncing and bouncing until coming to a stop. Collective sigh of relief all round.
Question is, what might have occurred? Where the Sudan Air jets in such disrepair that the landing gear malfunctioned? Did bouncing on the runway finally lock them in place?
Glad to be alive regardless.
I recently attended an industry conference that included an awards dinner. While dining we were serenaded by a performer singing and playing acoustic guitar. He was very good, but entirely too loud. My watch includes a sound level meter, and it peaked out several times warning me that noise over 90dB could cause damage. A number of us got our food and ate in the lobby.
Really don’t understand why live sound engineers feel it necessary to use all the amplification they have on hand, especially when the musical act is secondary to the event.
But it goes beyond that. IMHO, all PA and public music is far too loud. When I fly my earbuds stay in from TSA until baggage claim. Airports are the worst thanks to the hard surfaces, but basically every retail and resturaunt location is just too loud, thanks to the “science” of in-store experience.
I’m someone who attends concerts very rarely but if it’s someone on my eclectic list of artists. I’ve seen major artists like Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and even Taylor Swift this summer but I’ve also seen Weird Al twice (once in the ’80s and once in 2015) and in the 1990s I even saw Spinal Tap live! When will my next concert be? It could be next year or in five years, it just depends on who I feel like seeing at that time.
There was a commercial jet that crashed because the pilots failed to lower the landing gear: PIA flight 8303, on May 22, 2020, in Karachi. The pilots attempted to land the Airbus A320 with the gear still up (they seem to have ignored all the alarms), causing the engines to scrape the ground, suffering serious damage. They went around and both engines failed while the plane was maneuvering for a second approach. The plane crashed in a residential area, killing a total of 98 people.
I am sorry, but I am old school. I really enjoyed when one of the flight deck crew would give some information about our aircraft and departure route, what cities/geographic areas would be flown over, and anything else that would be of interest along the way, etc. Yes, we now have moving map displays in the seatback in front of us, but they only tell you where you are…not really where you are going and the route that will be taken. My best flight ever in this regard was a United flight from Boston to Los Angeles. One of the pilots said he would give some brief commentary throughout the entire flight on Channel 9 (the “ATC channel”) on their IFE system. So, in addition to hearing ATC coms, every now and then the pilot would explain something of interest we were flying over/nearby. One of the most interesting 5-1/2 hour trips I have had the pleasure of taking. I think a U.S. trans-con flight is one of the more interesting trips one can take – America the Beautiful for sure.
I don’t mind (reasonable) cockpit comms. I was grateful to the pilots taking us out of (or was it into? I forget) Narita who pointed out Mt Fuji on my side of the plane. Don’t natter on at us or anything, but I appreciated them sharing that.
Worse is all the advertising junk you end up having to watch about your destination (looking at you, Emirates) especially when you’re only transiting.
Patrick, I can’t believe it’s been 21 years. Been with you from the start. In the 80s I developed a fear of flying. At the Pittsburgh Airport I stopped in a bookstore (another relic from days past) and picked up a small paperback written by a PanAm pilot. It explained in simple terms the operation of the airplane, what the weird sounds were etc. It was a precursor to your work. A while back I recommended your book to a nervous flyer friend of mine He said I was the third person to tell him about Ask the Pilot. Keep up the good work.
I always enjoy your writing, although I am not a flyer.
I recently started watching the program which seeks to explain the causes of aircraft accidents, on the Smithsonian channel and I am curious as to your opinion. Are the documentaries fair and accurate. After watching many, I greatly appreciate your comments concerning automated, pilotless airliners.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Rich Cohen
I KNEW there was a memory of an airliner doing an inadvertent gear-up landing knoking around in my head somewhere, & that it was Spantax somewhere in northern Germany. You’ll remember Spantax, an outfit with a dizzying history of incidents & accidents.
Sure enough: https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19780404-2
I’m 71 now and started attending concerts around 1967/1968. I saw anyone who came through town (Chicago) whether I was interested in their music or not. Tickets were cheap, 5 or 6 bucks, and it was a social thing as much as it was for the music. The sound quality was terrible but nobody cared, you were there to party. In my early thirties I got married, had kids and naturally your priorities get rearranged. I started attending concerts again in my mid to late 50’s and was amazed by the improvements in sound reinforcement technology. I was finally able to appreciate the sound as much as the performance. Caught up with people like X, the reconstituted Stooges, etc. Now I still like attending club and theater performances, but I’ve aged out of the stadium shows.
The solution to your concert aversion may be to go and see a band that you’ve never seen or heard before, so you have no expectations of what the songs “should” sound like. The Mudmen are always a ripping good time, and on the folky side of things, Danny Michel.
Personally, I don’t mind the pilot PAs as much as all the promotional garbage the FAs have to broadcast. And if you’re lucky in three languages! Watching a 2-hr show takes 3 hours just because all of the interruptions due to such life changing events such as an offer for your 23rd credit card (but now with more miles!) or this exclusive perfume that was developed by LeWhatever exclusively for PainInTheButt International Airways. Oh and please fasten your seatbelt. The bell, the light, and the FO coming on wasn’t enough. So here’s another announcement telling you to do what we already told you to do five times when you stepped foot onto this aluminum salami. By the way, fasten your seatbelt. And if you haven’t heard fasten your seatbelt. Around the 11th time, I actually really need the message because instead of putting it on, I’m trying to use it to strangulate myself.
I miss the hokey pointers from the pilot about what I see out the left side of the plane, expecting turbulence, expecting to arrive a little early, etc.
The excessive PA announcements remind me of a comedian (I can’t recall who it was) who mocked the phrase “this is your Captain speaking from the flight deck.” His thought was “no s***, where else are you going to be? The bathroom?”