Aviation demands a peculiar form of professionalism, different from many other occupations. As pilots we’re tested regularly – at least four times a year, often more, or perhaps every time you go to work in some positions/airlines. There aren’t many other career choices where you can look forward to a life of jeopardy, continually tested […]
Having jumping through multiple hoops to get the original – you would think that having operated into the States every month for the last two years, renewing my visa would not be that difficult a process. Well ..
An engine failure at altitude above the maximum engine out altitude, followed by the obligatory engine out drift down is a bread and butter event for a cruise pilot. Typically this is practiced and evaulated using the highest levels of automation in LNAV and VNAV. For more information see Engine Out Drift Down and the […]
There is (what can only be described as) a software bug in the Thrust Reference setting software in the 777. While this bug manifests itself in several situation on normal and non-normal operations, it manifests significantly with flight safety implications during VNAV engine out approaches. I discovered this issue back in the late 90’s when I […]
So after two+ weeks in Cologne, we finally set off today to our first overnight, which ended up being Belgrade, Serbia. The choice of our first stop came down to stopping somewhere just outside Europe (rather than pushing all the way to the Middle East on our first day) and avoiding the Earthquake region in […]
After a debacle in Abu Dhabi – and another occurrence involving offload and a 4 hour delay – I was asked to prepare some specific advice for Captains operating out of Abu Dhabi. Background Due to high temperatures, most Abu Dhabi departures during mid-Summer experience a potential performance penalty for departure; in most cases resulting […]
![EBA Overtime Calculator (v2.6) [Update 27Oct17]](http://www.infinidim.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/EBACalc1-300x211.jpg)
I’ve watched the EBA with some envy for the last three years. Between Overtime, Callout, Domestic Allowances, Leave and Days Off, the position of Manager hasn’t quite kept pace with the EBA. I’ve also been watching the need for a spreadsheet to calculate the Overtime, Callout and Accommodation Cancellation monies, but resisting the temptation to […]
Weather avoidance is part and parcel of an airline pilot’s standard task list. From the Mark One Eyeball to the Rockwell Collins WXR-2100 Weather Radar there are various tools available to assist in this task; all of which leverage the training and experience an airline pilot brings to the flight deck. But my last trip […]
The Boeing 787 is certainly a revolutionary step from anything Boeing has done recently – and from anything else Boeing seems to have planned in the future it would seem, judging by the 737-Max. From what I can glean on the web, the 737 Max while incorporating some revolutionary technologies in the engines and airframe – is […]
Recently I’ve had a couple of discussions about the Cruise Center of Gravity (CoG) setting/default in the B777 Flight Management Computer (FMC). Basically the 777 FMC comes with a default Cruise CoG setting on the PERF INIT page (shown). The FMC has a default value (small font) and valid pilot entries vary from 7.5% to […]
A while ago I scheduled a temperature inversion in a simulator session in preparation for our operation to Abu Dhabi’s summer. For further reflections see Performance Limited Takeoff and High Temperature Departure Abu Dhabi. The issue of temperature inversions and the implications for takeoff performance calculation raised so many issues that I ended up having […]
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 […]
I’m working on an update to the Practices and Techniques document I developed in 2008. While this has been a published document in my airline for several years, it was recently taken offline and is now a training background reference, as was the original intention for it’s development. Just one of the many subjects currently […]
Some time ago I wrote down all that I had been taught and learned about operating the Boeing 777 Electronic Checklist (ECL) in conjunction with the onboard Electronic Indication and Crew Alert System (EICAS). I’ve updated it along the way as I became an instructor and it’s become more and more of a formal document […]
So having recently come from a night freight operation where we were quite often operating towards the limits of the Maximum Flight Duty Period (MaxFDP) – After having stuffed up the calculations a couple of times, I decided to create a VA Max FDP Calculator Spreadsheet that would calculate for me the number I usually […]
