United Pilot Q&A Thread

[LarryJ]

Originally Posted by ryan182

wow, how do they figure 600' viz?

They use one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_visual_range

Actually, two of them on runways under 8,000' in length and three of them on runways 8,000' and longer. Four on really long runways but I don't remember the cutoff for four.

[DWP]

Thanks freshairborne! That just didn't seem right to me to spend that much time on a plane or at the airport and not get paid until you sit down up front. Those 2 guys looked pretty tired when they walked up to my gate, and then to have to look at the night sky for a flight down the coast. Is the limit 14 hours of to/from the airport, deadheading, and flying in a 24 hour period.

[aluminumdriver]

Originally Posted by snowed

It seems to me that pre-2001 Pilots used to announce sights/waypoints/views more often than they do now. On any given transcon you'd get about 3 announcements when flying over something interesting (like a lit up city, or Yosemite National Park, etc...) Is it me or are you guys still making those announcements? And if not, is there a specific rule in place that prevents it?

The reason I ask is that I download the flight path of every flight as a KML file and import it into Google Earth to re-fly the route. That way if I have seen something interesting or want to know what certain things are I can look them up.

Thanks.

Except on the 737, all the other aircraft have inflight entertainment systems. When we make a PA announcement for sights we A) wake passengers that may be sleeping or B) interrupt the movie and when it comes back on it has already played further than when we interrupted it. Thus, I keep PA announcements to a minimum unless it is something new or spectacular. I pointed out the flooding in the Midwest today, and the Grand Canyon the other day.

Originally Posted by DWP

On our flight from ANC-SFO Sunday, we had the pilots deadheading that were to fly the 9:30 pm flight to LAX. We ended up leaving ANC 1:15 late, then a 4 hour flight, and about an hour before their scheduled flight left SFO.
That makes for a very long day, but I'm curious about how you get paid when you are not commuting. They flew the flight up the night before that arrived around midnight, then ride back and not fly until late that next night.
If as you say "if you can see us we aren't getting paid," isn't that a financial loss to the pilots for all of that time and only an hour of flight time?

The way we are paid is pretty archaic (sic). We show up for duty an hour prior for free to mission plan. We preflight the jet for free. We start getting paid once we release the brakes to push back. When we block in at the gate and set the brakes. We stop getting paid. While we shut down engines, run checklists, and say good-bye, we are working for free. When we go to the hotel and sit in a hotel for 30 hours on a layover, we are working for free.

I'm hopeful we get this all changed in our next contract to get paid for the time we are working. Who knows.

[aluminumdriver]

Originally Posted by snowed

It seems to me that pre-2001 Pilots used to announce sights/waypoints/views more often than they do now. On any given transcon you'd get about 3 announcements when flying over something interesting (like a lit up city, or Yosemite National Park, etc...) Is it me or are you guys still making those announcements? And if not, is there a specific rule in place that prevents it?

The reason I ask is that I download the flight path of every flight as a KML file and import it into Google Earth to re-fly the route. That way if I have seen something interesting or want to know what certain things are I can look them up.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by DWP

On our flight from ANC-SFO Sunday, we had the pilots deadheading that were to fly the 9:30 pm flight to LAX. We ended up leaving ANC 1:15 late, then a 4 hour flight, and about an hour before their scheduled flight left SFO.
That makes for a very long day, but I'm curious about how you get paid when you are not commuting. They flew the flight up the night before that arrived around midnight, then ride back and not fly until late that next night.
If as you say "if you can see us we aren't getting paid," isn't that a financial loss to the pilots for all of that time and only an hour of flight time?

Originally Posted by DWP

Thanks freshairborne! That just didn't seem right to me to spend that much time on a plane or at the airport and not get paid until you sit down up front. Those 2 guys looked pretty tired when they walked up to my gate, and then to have to look at the night sky for a flight down the coast. Is the limit 14 hours of to/from the airport, deadheading, and flying in a 24 hour period.

The duty day is from our report time at the airport, until our block-in time +15 minutes. 14 hours is the average time, it can be shorter if you started earlier in the morning for duty that day. It can be extended with pilot concurrence but never longer than 16 hours (FAA requires 8 hours off every 24 hours minimum). Most pilots won't extend past their duty day just because it isn't really safe. Once you pass the 11 hour mark, you really start going downhill fast. I had a 13 hour day today and I was really beat, luckily it was the last day of my trip.

[OakParkFlyer]

I enjoy reading this thread, appreciate all the insight shared.

I sit on the wing a lot, and have always wondered about the difference in engine sounds when spun up for take off. In particular, some 737 and 757s sound like a 2-stroke lawnboy mower at high RPM, and others are just loud and smooth sounding. Is there a reason, like difference in manufacturer (RR vs. PW vs. GE), or is it the particular operating conditions that day?

I hear it on the ground too, I live under the typical takeoff routing for runway 10 at ORD.

thx

[jackal]

Originally Posted by OakParkFlyer

I enjoy reading this thread, appreciate all the insight shared.

I sit on the wing a lot, and have always wondered about the difference in engine sounds when spun up for take off. In particular, some 737 and 757s sound like a 2-stroke lawnboy mower at high RPM, and others are just loud and smooth sounding. Is there a reason, like difference in manufacturer (RR vs. PW vs. GE), or is it the particular operating conditions that day?

I hear it on the ground too, I live under the typical takeoff routing for runway 10 at ORD.

thx

Count me interested in the reply, too. I especially noticed it on a recent series of AS flights--the 734's engine was perfectly smooth, but the 73G's sounded like that two-stroke lawnmower running without oil. Scared me at first!

I thought it was just something unique to that particular aircraft, but my next couple of 73G flights had the same sound. It appears the 734 uses a CFM56-3 engine and the 73G uses a CFM56-7 (although I don't quite remember the 73H, which uses the same CFM56-7 engine, having the same sound, but my memory's a bit fuzzy).

UA operates (according to what I see) the 732 and 735, both of which appear to use the older engines more similar to the 734, so I'm not sure why those have the same high-RPM-two-stroke-motor sound as the 73G...

[aluminumdriver]

Originally Posted by OakParkFlyer

I enjoy reading this thread, appreciate all the insight shared.

I sit on the wing a lot, and have always wondered about the difference in engine sounds when spun up for take off. In particular, some 737 and 757s sound like a 2-stroke lawnboy mower at high RPM, and others are just loud and smooth sounding. Is there a reason, like difference in manufacturer (RR vs. PW vs. GE), or is it the particular operating conditions that day?

I hear it on the ground too, I live under the typical takeoff routing for runway 10 at ORD.

thx

Not really sure how to answer that one. Each type of engine has it's own sound. Different aircraft with different companies, can have different engines. Our 757's have different engines than US Air's 757's. We don't have 737-200's anymore, only -300 and -500 which will be going away soon.

So, just because you are on a 737 on say Delta, doesn't mean if you get on our 737 they will sound the same since they might be different engines completely.

[goalie]

Originally Posted by aluminumdriver

Except on the 737, all the other aircraft have inflight entertainment systems. When we make a PA announcement for sights we A) wake passengers that may be sleeping or B) interrupt the movie and when it comes back on it has already played further than when we interrupted it. Thus, I keep PA announcements to a minimum unless it is something new or spectacular. I pointed out the flooding in the Midwest today, and the Grand Canyon the other day......

and a considerate point as well as you know there will be that one pax who will b-m-g that the pilot kept interrupting the movie tho i will say for those pilots who have ch9 on, there is at least one out there who will announce during his "welcome aboard speech" that if anyone is interested, he will be giving trip updates every hour on the hour and also pointing out any items of interest on the ground during the flight. a very nice touch as he's considerate to those that want to watch a movie or sleep but also aware that there are "us ch9 junkies out there that just need to get our fix "

[freshairborne]

Originally Posted by DWP

Thanks freshairborne! That just didn't seem right to me to spend that much time on a plane or at the airport and not get paid until you sit down up front. Those 2 guys looked pretty tired when they walked up to my gate, and then to have to look at the night sky for a flight down the coast. Is the limit 14 hours of to/from the airport, deadheading, and flying in a 24 hour period.

The duty time starts one hour before scheduled pushback time on the first flight of the day and ends 15 minutes after the parking brake is set for the last time of the duty period. It accounts for flight planning, getting to the airplane and doing preflight setups, completing pre start and pre pushback checklists, etc., and shutting down the airplane systems and reading parking checklists after the last flight of the duty period.

A typical duty period can be as short as an hour and a half for a day where we fly from DEN to COS, but it's rare. More common on the Airbus & 757 or 767 where we will be on for 8-12 hours.

The part that is commonly forgotten is that we are usually gone from home for more than a day, and on the 757/767 fleet in DEN, it's almost always a 4 or 5 day trip.

So we have flight time, duty time, and away time. My typical patterns are 89 hours per month, with typically about double that for duty time, and my car is in the company parking lot for about 350 hours a month covering 4 or 5 trips.

I would guess that we have some frequent fliers who live a similar nomadic life, but get to sip suds during the flights, where I have to wait til we're on our layover.

Freshairborne

[jcrossen]

It's been years since I flew UAL, moving to Dallas will do that to you, but have to say this is one of the most interesting threads ever .. I've spent a fair amount fo time reading through it.

One question, with cutbacks in service and higher prices .. not to mention new fees ... are pilots concerned about a possible increase in PAX problems from people trying to avoid baggage fees and being grumpier in general and what do you do to prepare/train for this?
Thanks

[TA]

two questions for you:

1. on landing, tower will frequently say, "contact ground point eight". Is that because most all ground frequencies are 121.x?

2. in another thread, people here are suggesting that they are seeing the beginnings of cancellations on the day of, due to light loads, say LGA-ORD or SFO-LAX. Is this plausible? People here have always said that it is not straightforward to cancel a flight just like that, because of crew, cargo, passenger rerouting, etc. But on a route like SFO-LAX with so many frequencies maybe it's not so far fetched. I said that if anyone would know it would be the pilots and FAs. Do you know if it's happening, or if it could happen?

[aluminumdriver]

Originally Posted by jcrossen

It's been years since I flew UAL, moving to Dallas will do that to you, but have to say this is one of the most interesting threads ever .. I've spent a fair amount fo time reading through it.

One question, with cutbacks in service and higher prices .. not to mention new fees ... are pilots concerned about a possible increase in PAX problems from people trying to avoid baggage fees and being grumpier in general and what do you do to prepare/train for this?
Thanks

Grumpier than now? Is that possible?

The whole flight experience is worse now for passengers and employees, so folks can't complain here about poor employees when we are dealing with the same from passengers. Everyone is stressed out from the system now.

Originally Posted by TA

two questions for you:

1. on landing, tower will frequently say, "contact ground point eight". Is that because most all ground frequencies are 121.x?

2. in another thread, people here are suggesting that they are seeing the beginnings of cancellations on the day of, due to light loads, say LGA-ORD or SFO-LAX. Is this plausible? People here have always said that it is not straightforward to cancel a flight just like that, because of crew, cargo, passenger rerouting, etc. But on a route like SFO-LAX with so many frequencies maybe it's not so far fetched. I said that if anyone would know it would be the pilots and FAs. Do you know if it's happening, or if it could happen?

1. Yes, ground controls are usually 121.x, so they shorten it up by just giving us the last digits.

2. This is a funny one. By law, the airlines can't cancel flights just due to light loads since they are charging people for carriage. But, they might need that jet on a different route at the last minute (OBTW, that load is a lot higher too) and thus they take that jet there. There is nothing written that we get to see that says if a load falls below so and so they cancel it. The load to say Jacksonville from ORD may be only 30% full, but the flgiht back is 100% full with international connections. So that flight would leave pretty empty.

[MarkXS]

Originally Posted by aluminumdriver

Different aircraft with different companies, can have different engines. Our 757's have different engines than US Air's 757's.

Different question on engines, which your point above made me think of: In all the discussions about mergers, we always hear about "fleet commonality" or lack thereof. And sometimes analysts, or armchair QBs and FTers, even mention things like "yes, they both have 757s but the engines are different".

Now I know that from a maintenance standpoint, adding aircraft with different engines than the airline used before the merger would be likely costly. But what about from a pilot's perspective. Is there any difference for you between flying a UA 757 or the US 757 (hypothetically and heaven forbid that misbegotten merger idea happening again!) just due to the different engines? Do you need to follow different procedures, need different training? Or is it all the same to you?

Thanks!

[jcrossen]

Originally Posted by aluminumdriver

Grumpier than now? Is that possible?

The whole flight experience is worse now for passengers and employees, so folks can't complain here about poor employees when we are dealing with the same from passengers. Everyone is stressed out from the system now.

I think it's not only possible, but probable ... I feel sorry for the pilots, especially the FAs, and me as well. Flying used to be so much more peaceful and pleasant

[aluminumdriver]

Originally Posted by MarkXS

Different question on engines, which your point above made me think of: In all the discussions about mergers, we always hear about "fleet commonality" or lack thereof. And sometimes analysts, or armchair QBs and FTers, even mention things like "yes, they both have 757s but the engines are different".

Now I know that from a maintenance standpoint, adding aircraft with different engines than the airline used before the merger would be likely costly. But what about from a pilot's perspective. Is there any difference for you between flying a UA 757 or the US 757 (hypothetically and heaven forbid that misbegotten merger idea happening again!) just due to the different engines? Do you need to follow different procedures, need different training? Or is it all the same to you?

Thanks!

Yes, there are differences between aircraft with different engines. Back a while ago we used to have the 757's, 767-200 and 767-300. You were type-rated for all three, but when you flew the -200 it was a big change due to the engines and you needed additional training for it. Maintaining different engines for the same fleet is not cost effective, and ultimately you need to change over to one type and brand.