GoingAway

Was it a US based airline? There are strict rules for pilots and how long between any alcohol and flying is permitted, I assume by FAA as well as their respective Companies. I have to assume no airline employee is allowed to drink while on the job and likely in uniform. Could be a good question for the FA Q&A Thread.

jackal

I'm surprised none of the pilots have answered this yet (then again, they do tend to be out on the road...), but digging in my memory from my days of ground school (oh, all right, with a little help from Google), FAA regs state that the pilot cannot have consumed any alchohol within the last eight hours and cannot have a BAC of greater than .04% before flying. I didn't read it specifically, but I would think it'd be a safe assumption that the consumption of alcohol by a flight crew on the job would be verboten as well.

Individual airlines sometimes have more stringent requirements (one I found online said it was 12 hours bottle-to-throttle instead of the FAA's minimum of 8).

kenhawk

To the pilots and FA's:

How often are you required to submit to random drug/alcohol testing by either management or FAA? Do they show up at the gate and escort you away for the test or is it less formal?

Thanks in advance...

flygirl94

Random drug/alcohol testing is done exactly as you have described, and I think in years past it was 10 or 20% of the workforce at any given time. I think they reduced the % sometime in the last couple of years b/c 99.99% of people tested negative.

However, I do believe the crew is tested after any incident (blown slide, evac, etc.) or if someone reports that the crew seems intoxicated.

If I am wrong, our resident fa's/pilots can correct me.

I have been ramdomly tested 3x in 14 years. (Negative, of course.)

ryan182

I think there was a thread awhile back where some pax said something like "what are you high", obviously not in the context of actually implying drugs were being used to some crew member and it began a chain of unfortunate events.

cleareddirectfluky

How come aircraft don't fly above FL 40-43. Is is because of limitations of the particular plane? I knew the Concorde flew about 50,000 ft and the weather was smooth. Perhaps future aircraft models could fly higher to avoid weather? Does this make sense?

Great thread and thanks for your participation, pilots.

aluminumdriver

Yes, aircraft are limited to a specific maximum altitude. It is usually assigned by the manufacturer and it guarantees a minimum climb rate and turbulence buffet protection for the aircraft at that maximum altitude. As aircraft get bigger or stronger engines, they can go higher (see how a 737-300 is limited to 37000' I believe, but the newer models can go up to the 40's). Most aircraft are limited to 40 and below, but some models can go up to the low 40's if they are light enough, and corporate jets routinely go up to 40 and above.

They are designing new future aircraft that hopefully will go higher and and faster. NASA has investigated scram jet technology, and there are talks of a suborbital corporate jet going on right now that could lead to new technology for passenger jets.

Problem is, in order for a jet to operate at such high altitudes, their engines would have to be designed to operate in the extreme atmospheric conditions, with a lot less oxygen and pressure available for a large commercial engine. If you design an engine to work up there, then inevitably the engine becomes much more inefficient at low altitudes and the fuel savings become less of an issue. But yes, there is research going on in this area, as well as new synthetic fuels to reduce the amount of oil the airline industry uses.

LarryJ

I believe the current sample rates are 25% for drugs and 10% for alcohol. It is random so some will get hit more often then others. There is also non-random testing including pre-employement, post-incident/accident, and reasonable cause testing.

Another factor is that when above FL410 one pilot must be using oxygen at all times. The airline doesn't want to pay for all of that oxygen use and the pilots don't want to spend so much time wearing the mask. With a conventional jet engine you also aren't getting the same efficiency improvement that you do when climbing above lower altitudes. A jet is more efficient at colder temperatures but as you approach the top of the Troposphere the temperature lapse rate decreases.

Concorde cruised in a continuous climb. As weight was burned off, they slowly climbed to stay at the most efficient altitude for their current weight. They would top out at, or near, FL600 before beginning their descent.

jackal

When you guys say 10-25% of the workforce at any given time, what exactly does that mean? Surely not that 25% of the workforce is tested before any given flight--in other words, one out of every four.

Edit: IIRC, when I worked in a DOT safety-sensitive job (railroad train crew), it might have been 10% (or whatever) of the workforce was tested each month. Maybe that's what you mean...?

Sorry, just a little confused by that.

GreenFireflyer

Goingaway, you are correct. It was a US based airline.

Unrelated question, is SAN a special qual airport? What about airports like CMB where the US FAA has not "assessed the Civil Aviation Authority for compliance with ICAO", does this automatically put the airport in a special qual/supervised entry category?

gumpfs

Just to give my perspective on this question - I think the controllers at IAD are probably the worst I've had, although I haven't been terribly impressed with ATL or LAX ground controllers. DEN used to always bring you in high and fast, but based on some feedback generated by a company/ALPA program (small union air safety plug), they've gotten much better in recent years. ORD controllers are far and away the best.

What makes a bad ground controller? Getting easily frustrated, being rude, leaving you sitting for long periods of time with no apparent reason or explanation, blocking you in and causing unnecessary delays, forgetting who is who, using wrong callsigns, etc. etc.

SAN has never really bothered me. There are buildings, sure, but the harder part is the non-precision approach.

MEX is also very challenging, but I always liked going there. At RNO, we always set up and briefed for something we never did (engine failure on takeoff profile), whereas at least we had the challenge at Mexico City and there's a sense of accomplishment when you actually do it well. And the food at the layover is great and the beer is cheap.

flygirl94

Sorry, I know I wasn't clear ("any given time"), but AFAIK the percentage tested refers to yearly. It could be monthly. I'll look into it and see if I can give you a better answer.

UNITED959

Last week our crew put on the parking brakes right before takeoff and the FO came back to make sure we didn't need to de-ice the wings again. How can you get a full view of the wing through those little windows and see ice (that's presumably clear) on the control surfaces?

HaeMaker

Speaking of ATC...

For those pilots who were flying at the time, was there a noticeable difference after Reagan fired most of the PATCO members in 1981?

(as a side note, my mother who was an employee of SEIU at the time, actually walked the line at SFO and shut down the airport for hours!)

rockdoc

Why the special profile for RNO - typically strong crosswinds??