ldsant

When I met Lokahi last night here in SEA, he gave me the secret formula too. . .

Easy. . .very little math which, of course, is my favorite!!

I think that he is easily bribable with some good beer from the mainland!

[This message has been edited by ldsant (edited 09-23-2002).]

LHR Tim

Personally, I preferr to play "How many Mai Tai's can LHR Tim drink before he's halfway to Hawaii". Now that puts me in the holiday mood

UNITED959

LHR Tim...I never thought of it, but we can implement this "half-way" game with a number of flight-related routines:

"By the half-way point of today's flight..."

...how many prison matrons will have yelled at me?
...how many times will the movies need to be reset?
...how many times will the guy/girl sitting next to me need to go to the bathroom?
...how much louder can the kid two seats away scream?
...how long till the smoke alarm sounds due to somebody's shoes?
...how many seats have broken video displays?

rockdoc

Yes, the mythical half way point will vary depending upon variables during flight. However, there is an exact calculation that can be made as to the half way point given the info the pilots relate at the beginning of the flight. Is this the exact half way point? I kind of doubt it because the pilots don't tell us about any changes to the original conditions in route.

InfrequentFlyer

(going from memory..) On my flight, the ground speed was 471 mph, the head wind 1, the wheels up time 5:33 in LA, and the distance 2211 to the 1/2 point. All this was given to us by the pilots; no need to look at the map. THe winning time for 1/2 way was 8:57:xx pm in HNL.
Not me If there's a quick and easy formula I'd sure like to know it! I didn't win, but I think I should have..


I hope I remembered the numbers correctly..



[This message has been edited by InfrequentFlyer (edited 09-23-2002).]

Kurt

Be sure to put down the seconds when you guess; precision is sometimes rewarded if there's a tie.

squeakr

on our flight there WAS a tie and the 2nd winner didn't want the champagne - said it gave her a headache. She was offered a number of other bottles of wine but wanted a particular one they didn't have on the flight...she whined all the rest of the way over....

ncorman

They didn't have the Boone's Farm on that flight?

mymiles2go

Where's Ron or Mark Rogers when ya need them?

LIH Prem

Here's what they announce:

The flight time, the takeoff time, the total distance, the airspeed on the first half of the trip, the airspeed on the second half of the trip, the headwind on the first half of the trip and the headwind on the second half of the trip.

Speeds/distances are in nautical miles.

-David


[This message has been edited by LIH Prem (edited 09-23-2002).]

Lokahi

Of course, the caveat (as I might have forgotten to mention to the charming lsdant) is that I haven't flown UA in a long while...

...and therefore haven't had the benefit of the much more extensive information apparently being provided by the flight deck these days about wind speed variability over the course of the flight, the changing effect of the moon's gravity pull over time, and the necessity for an earlier-than-scheduled arrival for a member of the crew to make it to his daughter's soccer game...

Nonetheless, only a glass of Smoking Loon merlot could pry the winning secret from my lips

Aloha.

UNITED959

How about my personal favorite...a 1997 Cabernet: "Smashedover Thehead."

Mark Rogers

I've been gone because I got a little tired of all the management/labor acrimony. I've decided not to participate in those discussions anymore.

I've always come within a minute of the half-way point on the Hawaii game. I ignore everything except flight plan time and the time we took off. We have pretty sophisticated flight planning software used by Dispatch, and the flight plan time already takes all of the other variables into account. From experience, I know that we generally run about 2-5 minutes ahead of flight plan (although we can certainly be behind), so I subtract out a couple of minutes and divide by half, guessing a number for the seconds. I've never been very far off.

I'm a little sceptical of a complex formula that gives the point to the second. Did they also give the wheels up time to the second? If not, the seconds can be nothing more than a guess. Plus, winds and temperature are never exactly as forecast, which is why we always run a bit off flight plan. Last flight to Hawaii, I was amazed because the newlyweds next to me took about 15 minutes to come up with their answer (mine takes less than a minute, obviously), and they ended up being 25 minutes off what I had guessed!

rockdoc

The half way contest is basically a high school math problem.

It is X distance between two points; you are travelling at Y speed with a headwind or tailwind of some amount. You left at Z time; at what point will you reach the midpoint. It is a calculated answer based on the information given by the pilots.

Sure you can note the the estimated flying time and divide by half and be quite close, but there is an EXACT answer that can be determined by the facts given for the problem. Again is it really the halfway point - in most cases is suspect not - but it is the answer to the problem as given.

And yes, it takes about a minute to calculate. If you take any longer you are doing something wrong.

PremEx2000

While I would love to know these "foolproof" formulas, I'm also kind of interested in the history of the game.

Does anybody know when United started doing this. For my two trips to Hawaii, they've done the contest. Are pilots required to participate?

I really like the contest because it brings back some of the thrill and mystery of flying -- it feels very 1950s aviation-wise--which I think is cool.

I also hope that this isn't yet another thing to be cut back by United.