At some point over the last few years, I have apparently encountered Perses, the ancient Greek God of destruction and have inherited his curse. Actually this is an imperfect syllogism, because while some of the things I touch these days certainly do turn to crap – they’re all basically computers. Unfortunately the Greeks seemed not […]
As a pilot who spent the most significant portion his career in Emirates, I still tend to keep my ear to the ground as to what’s happening in the Sandpit. While rumors abound and scuttlebutt is ever present, I’m hearing from a couple of sources both inside and outside Ek of developments in the pilot recruitment market. – […]
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 […]
So finally at 17:37 Local, we touched down in Darwin on the latest, and hopefully second last day of our journey. Still to achieve is the last segment down through Alice (for fuel) and onto Bankstown, where the aircraft will enter the Hanger for some radio upgrades as well as to address the snags we’ve […]
Managing a departure with a performance limited takeoff can be one of the more challenging tasks that face the Captain of an aircraft today. It all sounds simple enough in theory. Based on the Airport/Runway, Ambient Weather Conditions and Aircraft, a computer will spit out down to the kilogram how much weight you’re allowed to lift off the runway. From this number a passenger/cargo and fuel load is determined – and off you go. But all is not as it seems.
The presence of additional flight crew on the flight deck over and above the standard two crew complement can be a challenge for some Primary Crew to manage. The role of a Relief Crew member on a flight deck can also be a challenging one. Decades of research and documentation clearly define the roles of Cisco and Pancho on the flight deck. No one defines what Diablo is supposed to do …
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 […]
A couple of months ago, Meg and I went into GPAC to see Deep Blue Orchestra. We had the greatest time. Drinks in the foyer lead to the soft chiming announcement that heralded opening doors and we filed into the small intimate theatre. I had only been in that very theatre a few weeks before to see […]
Recently, I was THAT GUY … Have you ever slept in for work? In aviation that takes on a special meaning, given the way the tasks of dozens of people and departments revolve around the scheduled departure time of a flight. In my previous company we were collected for work by crew transport – a […]
At parties, one of the first questions I’m asked, once we’ve done the profession swapping business-card handshake, is “How do you get used to the Jet Lag?” I wrote this blog a while ago, but was reminded of it when I came across this document recently. It’s fascinating treatise on today’s airline pilot’s lifestyle. 42% […]
So recently I was called out to operate a Check Simulator session on one of our pilots who is returning to the fleet after a spell on another aircraft type. Since this was a one-off session, he was rostered with another pilot in support. When this occurs I like to make contact with the support […]
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.
Two weeks ago, Infinidim.org went down due to the hacking efforts of Anonymous. Yes, that’s right, Anonymous took down my personal web site. And they did a thorough job too. They infected posts, hacked the back end – they even inserted malicious code into the jpeg images inside the posts (I didn’t even know you […]
