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Fresh You mentioned that you have flown 737s, A320s and have trained for the 757/767.
At UA are you ultimately the person who decides what type of aircraft you fly or is that a Company decision? Do you work your way up through the fleet so to speak or choose your preferred aircraft and train on others as you see fit?
Thanks!
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Several completely unrelated questions. Thanks in advance for responses.
1. If a UA pilot has an opinion/comment on some aspect of the aircraft, can these can be passed to the manufacturer? For example, if a UA pilot felt "I don't think the same horn should be used both for takeoff misconfiguration and cabin altitude warnings". (The example is made up, I am not a pilot) Would there be a formal channel for United to communicate this to the manufacturer and a tracking system to follow up on the manufacturers response?
2. Many years ago, during the congested IAD evening departure bank, I once
heard the departure controller use the callsign Unit ("Yoonit") when calling
several different United flights. There was never any doubt which flights
the controller was talking to. But I have never heard this usage since that one evening, so I was wondering whether the pilots ever occasionally hear "Unit" instead of "United". (No, I was not drunk when it happened).
3. We hear about how the new UA livery is lighter than the old livery
and so it saves fuel. Does the livery really make a tangible difference?
4. For transpacific flights with four cockpit crew members, does the UA union require two Captains on the flight or can it be one Captain and three FOs?
5. For aircraft that are equipped with logo lights for the tail, is there a SOP for United on whether the logo lights should be turned on or off at night?
Thank you
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Der Flugmeil'faenger bin ich ja, stets lustig, heissa, hopsasa!
>>>what is the electronic flight bag and what does/will it do for you?
I'm going to oversimplify here. The EFB is basically a computer that will contain all the information that's currently in our flight cases. That's a flight manual for the specific airplane type we fly, in my case, a 757 and 767. Also, our Flight Operations manual, which is a 3" binder full of cool stuff that you need to either know or be able to look up on a moment's notice. also, charts for all the airports that we both fly to and could potentially fly to (as in weather diversion or unscheduled landing).
Also, it will have vastly improved weather data in real-time that we can access via a kind of intranet up- and down-link system. The data link exists now, but we are not using it to the potential that we will someday, soon, I hope. It is NOT wireless internet, so you can't use it to surf the web.
I occasionally fly in a small corporate jet with a friend of mine, and, while the plane is about 30 years old and has very low tech stuff in it, it has vastly superior weather aquisition, detection and tracking capability. That's where having a rich, safety conscious boss pays off!
I am a window flyer with channel 9. On a few occassions I have notcied what I uncomfortably. ignorantly considered a problem.
Two examples: a 737 taking off from Dallas a few years ago and noticed the flaps and front spoilers (?) were not extended as we began to roll down the runway and know this caused an accident in Detroit 20 years ago. We started down the runway and half way down threw on the brakes. After a return to the runway, the flaps were extended and took off. On a recent flight I happened to notice 4 (of maybe 12) rivets where the engine and wing (skin) attach were missing.
Should the pilot be told in either case or should we passengers assume these are known problems?
Fresh You mentioned that you have flown 737s, A320s and have trained for the 757/767.
At UA are you ultimately the person who decides what type of aircraft you fly or is that a Company decision? Do you work your way up through the fleet so to speak or choose your preferred aircraft and train on others as you see fit?
Thanks!
As has been mentioned, seniority is everything. It's like currency. My personal example is this: I have 21+ years worth. If I wanted the best quality of life, I'd be flying the 737, the most junior the planes, as a copilot, in my home base. I'd be the most senior 737 copilot here. Or, I could be based in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, or chicago, and be the most junior 777 Captain on earth. That'd get me a lot of early wake-up calls from the crew desk to fly short-notice all-nighters to Beijing, uphill in both directions through the snow....
There is not a crew base for each airplane in each domicile, so for me to fly the 777 or 747-400 in any capacity would mean commuting to another base. See all those pilots and F/As hanging around the gate all the time? commuters. About 50% or so of all flight crew members live that life. I've done it for lots of years, and now I've got the seniority to be a mid-pack captain on the 57/67 and be home about 14 nights a month.
We generally bid for our fleet, seat, and base according to what we can hold, and what we're willing to give up for, say, a captain bid, or a bigger plane. when the company announces vacancies, the guy or gal with the most seniority gets first choice.
Here's why going to another airline isn't as easy of a choice as it might seem. If I were to want to go to, say, Southwest or some other airline that's hiring, if we get hired, we start as the bottom doggie, and commute to reserve, uphill, snow, etc, copilot, etc.
Basic questions ... what is the correct term for the crew ...
captain, pilot, co-pilot, FO ... any of the above (to the respective person, of course) And it's left seat (looking out the window) pilot and the right seat FO or do I have that backwards?
Captain is: Pilot in Command, left seat guy or gal, his/her personal favorite pilot to fly with, Sir, Hey you, Sir, etc.
F/O is (well, f.o. sometimes...I used to be one...a LOT!) First Officer, Second in Command, co-pilot, Bubba, Yo Bubba, etc. Since we don't have flight engineers anymore, whom were F/E, second-O, plumber, etc, not the First Officer is also the Last Officer.
Ques: Why is it that some pilots land ever so gently while there are also instances of the opposite kind? I've noticed this with the 747s ... some touchdowns are hardly noticeable, while there's no mistaking the impact of the wheels other times!
Pilots, when you get approved for the visual approach, do you still use the ILS if available anyway?
thanks!
;
In a word, yes.
This answer will be for those whom are unfamiliar with ARAs.
There are generally numerous other ways to fly the glidepath on a visual approach, and we normally use them all.
Our planes are equipped with internally generated glide slope and azimuth data, and there is usually some form of visual glide path guidance at the runway, like VASI (visual approach slope indicator or PAPI (precision approach path indicator) we still back it up with the ILS (instrument landing system) which, for those unfamiliar, is an externally generated signal that we interpret with our nav instrumentation for glide path and azimuth, which means "lined up on the extended centerline of the runway".
Those are but a few of the many ARAs (aviation related acronyms) that you will no doubt read on this forum.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freshairborne
F/O is (well, f.o. sometimes...I used to be one...a LOT!) First Officer, Second in Command, co-pilot, Bubba, Yo Bubba, etc. Since we don't have flight engineers anymore, whom were F/E, second-O, plumber, etc, not the First Officer is also the Last Officer.
