I had 2,500 hours in the back of C-130s as a loadmaster. You're welcome. :-) It's really not that bad with hearing protection, and it's the hydraulic fluid that really stinks, I still love the smell of JP4 to this day. Plus you get to air it out when you open the doors at 20,000 feet where it's well below freezing to kick out some SF guys on a HALO drop.

(Written on 10/07/2020)(Permalink)

Depending on the runway in use, that visual approach into DCA is the most fun you can have in an airliner with your clothes on (from a passenger point of view anyway). I enjoyed that many times. As a pilot I wouldn't want to have to deal with all the red tape.

(Written on 13/06/2020)(Permalink)

I know I've flown on a Mad Dog as a passenger a few times, but all I remember is being in those back seats (I was a smoker) between the engines and if they weren't synced up, man was it noisy back there. I also remember a jump seat ride on an original DC-9 with American, and those pilots loved that airplane and they FLEW it. Autopilot off as soon as we were below 10,000. I also remember a ride on an Air Force C-9 (medevac) from Korea back to the Philippines and they had nice comfy business class type seats on that thing up front and it was so quiet and peaceful, I slept like a baby. I don't know why anyone, even an enthusiast, would want to sit in the back...

(Written on 12/06/2020)(Permalink)

Well there are a lot of safeguards in place. I'm not an expert, I'm only a private pilot but through my time on actual airline simulators, the time on the team designing procedures with experts, and time on my own flight simulator I got pretty familiar with programming an FMS and utilizing the autopilot. It's actually pretty hard to execute an incorrect flight plan which is why I still don't know how this crew managed to do it, but it does still happen. I know of one other incident that was similar, it wasn't my sector but the one next to me so I watched it all happen. It was pretty dicey. But only 2 incidents that I can recall over a 27 year ATC career so I'd say it's very rare.

(Written on 30/05/2020)(Permalink)

Yes we had a few I was sure would be rejected, but got through. And there were others that were an irritant for other reasons. I was the Union co-lead (Art 41 at the time I think, it's changed now). Some of the SMEs named some waypoints after fellow controllers, some of them non-members, and my FACREP was ballistic, but I begged him not to push the issue because this was a period where labor-management collaboration was starting to work and we didn't need distractions like that, which he respected. Regardless, nowadays when delivering a clearance, you almost have to spell out each waypoint phonetically to avoid problems later. Years ago I remember an MD-80 series cruising at FL340 westbound as an eventual arrival and I was on the D-side. The radar controller cleared the pilot direct to a waypoint without spelling it out and somehow they typed in the wrong spelling into the FMS and all of a sudden the aircraft started making a 180 degree turn to the right. Could've been disastrous. With

(Written on 29/05/2020)(Permalink)

Maybe a little insight into the process here. I was a career ATC at an ARTCC (Center) in the U.S. and lead an airspace redesign team. We were given a list of *potentially available*, "pronounceable" names but it wasn't comprehensive. So the team members would get creative, come up with names, trying to theme them with the name of the new procedure (SID or STAR) if possible and often tie them into local locations or culture. They were subject to review at the regional level and we had a few rejected because they might be considered inappropriate or confusing, but generally if they weren't already taken, they were published. So the naming of these fixes is hyper-local, not regional or national. It's tougher than one might think to come up with names too. With 5 letters there are 26^5 (11,881,376) possible combinations, not counting numeric digits which are used in NRS waypoints. However, they still have to be reasonably pronounceable which eliminates quite a few, and there are thousan

(Written on 29/05/2020)(Permalink)

Yes I think you're right. Obviously I could go to the 7110.65 and figure it out, but it's much more fun to debate it on the Internet while we can't fiy or control. As for Canada vs. USA, not sure, but when I retired in 2013 it was pretty standard ICAO.

(Written on 27/03/2020)(Permalink)

"And airborne", exactly what I was going to say. It's been decades since I was a tower controller, and "anticipated separation" is a real thing, however, I don't remember it being an exception to the "and airborne" part. I had an almost 11,000 foot runway and one day the local aero club had an open house and I was (literally) landing and departing 3 airplanes at a time (think Oshkosh). It was tons of fun, perfectly safe and impressed a lot of folks, but very much within the rules. Light aircraft only need 3,000 feet of separation on the runway. At first, reading this article I thought it was a bit hyperbolic, but then realized this could have ended badly.

(Written on 27/03/2020)(Permalink)

Yeah, I don't get all the hate. Probably New Yorkers. Like LGA and JFK are any better?. The whole NE complex is a disaster. Too much needs to be re-designed and re-evaluated and too many logistical and political obstacles are in the way. "You get the government you deserve," well in this case, you get the airports you deserve. As a traveler (and retired air traffic controller) I'll take EWR over the alternatives. There isn't much to be done about delays except building more runways which, see above, isn't gonna happen, but over the years landside I've notice many improvements. Same thing at PHL. I'll censor it but my major thought is always "Wow, it's no longer a s***hole."

(Written on 18/05/2019)(Permalink)