As Boeing’s first Fly-By-Wire aircraft (although not necessarily fly-by-wire by the Airbus definition) the 777 introduced a flight control augmentation system that the first fly by wire Airbus aircraft did not – Thrust Assymetry Compensation, or TAC. The basic problem is clear. During an engine failure on a twin wing-mounted engine aircraft there is an […]
It’s Tax Time again 2012/2013 and as since I’m one of those lazy people who does all the work at the end, instead of keeping up with it as it goes along – the first thing I need to do is update my Allowance calculator spreadsheet. I’m posting a copy of the sheet here for?you […]
In February 2009 I was part of the team that picked up Virgin Australia’s (then V Australia) first Boeing 777-300ER. Having arrived into the airline in June 2008, it had been a long 7 months – very long – but now we were about to get an aeroplane – and fly it. For the benefit […]
For the last decade or so, I have been working on a document called Boeing 777 Procedures and Techniques. It has it’s genesis in what was originally a Common Errors document based on observations of Pilot/Student actions in the Simulator – but most particularly Instructor/Examiner activity in the Brief/Sim/Debrief as well. See the Feb 2021 […]
We’ve become so reliant on GPS that the loss of it will come as quite a shock to today’s airline crew. The simulator doesn’t help – with a total inability to adequately simulate IRS drift. The issues are complex …
A runway change can be highly destructive to mental model the crew establish during preflight of the aircraft departure. Dozens of decisions, selections and entries are often required to be evaluated and implemented – often while the engines are running and aircraft are waiting behind you.
Recently, after commenting on the latest of Qantas’ engine troubles, I was asked to talk about what was an “interesting” in-flight moment for me. Despite this being one of the most common questions, I realised that I’ve never blogged about “interesting” flight moments – which of course immediately motivated me to do so. Funnily enough, […]
My wife and I irregularly take breakfast at a charming cafe about 20 minutes out of Geelong Victoria where we live. It’s called the?Red Door Cafe,?Inverleigh. We don’t just go there for the food and fare. Don’t get me wrong – they do a gorgeous breakfast made with for the most part locally grown organic […]
We are reviewing Decision Making Models at the moment. On the 777, we’ve used FORDEC, which is very close to the European model, except we’ve replaced “Check” with “Communicate”, which may or may not have been a good thing. Other fleets in our airline are using GRADE or NMATE. There are several reasons why Decision […]
Recently I was given a runway change on pushback. Despite operating out of LAX where runway change is a real likelihood, it’s been quite a while since I’ve had happen to me on taxi. Once we got the changes made – we ran the ECL Runway Change Checklist to tidy things up. Meanwhile our next […]
Friend and fellow podcaster Karlene Pettit recently blogged on managing the A330 speed/configuration during approach. I thought it might be interesting to explore the topic on the 777. The point of Karlene’s article is that often the manfacturer’s profile doesn’t comply with the ATC environment we find ourselves in, and the performance characteristics of the aircraft we fly are such […]
After a few years at Emirates, with some good experience as a First Officer on both the Airbus (A310-300 and A300-600R) and Boeing (B777-200 & -300/ER) – and after some hoop jumping – it became my turn to take on the Command Upgrade. If you don’t count my time in the Left Seat of the […]
![Wide Body EBA 2017 Calculator [UPDATE 11Aug19]](https://www.infinidim.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/39.jpg "39")
With the implementation of the 2017 Wide Body EBA – it’s time to revise the spreadsheet I developed to track and check Overtime, Callout, etc for the 2011 EBA. Part and parcel has been seeking clarification from the AIC/CP on certain aspects of the EBA’s implementation. Most particularly clarification over the MCG, how RP changeovers […]
I’ve been operating under the miss-understanding that if the visibility observed at the airport matches the minimum required to commence the approach – you’ll have a reasonable chance of completing the approach to a landing. As it turns out – for JAR OPS compliant NPA’s – this is not the case.
In February 2009 I was part of the team that picked up Virgin Australia’s (then V Australia) first Boeing 777-300ER. Having arrived into the airline in June 2008, it had been a long 7 months – very long – but now we were about to get an aeroplane – and fly it. For the benefit […]
