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United Pilot Q & A {Archive}

Old Aug 24, 2017, 8:42 am
  #6601  
 
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Originally Posted by 14940674
On my UX flight yesterday, the flight crew turned off the seatbelt sign at 14,000 feet. Up to this point, it had been my understanding that US flight crews wait until cruising altitude to extinguish the sign. Was my experience unusual, or was my understanding incorrect?
There's not really any requirement that it be on until cruise altitude. It is up to the discretion of the crew really but any time in smooth air above 10,000 feet it can be off generally.
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Old Aug 24, 2017, 8:51 am
  #6602  
 
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Originally Posted by Wayside
There's not really any requirement that it be on until cruise altitude. It is up to the discretion of the crew really but any time in smooth air above 10,000 feet it can be off generally.
I never forget how surprised I was on my first Non-US carrier flight when it came off at 10,000.
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Old Aug 24, 2017, 9:14 am
  #6603  
 
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Originally Posted by ROCAT
"cleared" radar only uses cleared to mean direct to a fix which is diffrent then "cleared to".
Actually, "cleared to" does not mean direct. It is a change in your clearance limit following that same routing that you were already on. You need the word "direct" in there for it to change the routing.

Controllers, or at least smart ones, usually are stricter with phraseology then pilots as the FAA puts redback issues 100% on controllers.
The FAA puts readback mistakes 100% on the controllers AND 100% on the pilots. ATC's failure to catch a pilot's incorrect readback does not get us off the hook for not following the actual clearance given.

Originally Posted by 14940674
On my UX flight yesterday, the flight crew turned off the seatbelt sign at 14,000 feet. Up to this point, it had been my understanding that US flight crews wait until cruising altitude to extinguish the sign.
We can turn the sign off early in the climb if we think the ride will be smooth. The problem is, there's rarely anyway to know if the climb will be smooth.

As you climb, you are climbing through layers of atmosphere with significantly different winds. When these wind changes occur gradually the ride will be smooth. If the wind changes occur over a relatively small change in altitude the boundaries between differing wind speeds and directions will be turbulent and we have no way to detect them. Once level at a cruising altitude we can get a lot better idea of what kind of ride to expect so have more confidence that we won't be surprised by turbulence with the sign off.

Originally Posted by manstein58
A question I would like to see answered is how often do planes abort their landing approaches because ATC has cleared another aircraft to take off on the same runway.
It's about spacing, not a controller's clearing multiple airplanes onto the runway at the same time. There are very defined lines drawn as to runway separation and we typically operate with as little as ten to twenty seconds of "padding". That doesn't mean that we're that close to an unsafe situation, we are that close to hitting the defined lines that maintains safe separation. When it becomes apparent that the line will be crossed, the arriving aircraft is usually sent around although it can sometimes be resolved by withholding a takeoff clearance.

Flying the 737, I probably have two or three ATC generated go-arounds a year.

Yesterday at LGA, where they land and depart on intersecting runways, I heard an AAL flight have it's takeoff clearance cancelled twice between, in each case, it did not start rolling fast enough to get through the runway intersection with the required spacing on the arriving aircraft. I has pleased that the LGA controller was able to cancel the takeoff clearance in each case as we would have been the aircraft to have to go-around on the second instance if she had not.

If you're interested in the details of the runway separation requirements they can be found in FAA Order 7110.65W which is the regulations under which ATC operates.
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Old Aug 24, 2017, 9:42 am
  #6604  
 
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Originally Posted by LarryJ
Actually, "cleared to" does not mean direct. It is a change in your clearance limit following that same routing that you were already on. You need the word "direct" in there for it to change the routing.T


The FAA puts readback mistakes 100% on the controllers AND 100% on the pilots. ATC's failure to catch a pilot's incorrect readback does not get us off the hook for not following the actual clearance given.


We can turn the sign off early in the climb if we think the ride will be smooth. The problem is, there's rarely anyway to know if the climb will be smooth.

As you climb, you are climbing through layers of atmosphere with significantly different winds. When these wind changes occur gradually the ride will be smooth. If the wind changes occur over a relatively small change in altitude the boundaries between differing wind speeds and directions will be turbulent and we have no way to detect them. Once level at a cruising altitude we can get a lot better idea of what kind of ride to expect so have more confidence that we won't be surprised by turbulence with the sign off.


It's about spacing, not a controller's clearing multiple airplanes onto the runway at the same time. There are very defined lines drawn as to runway separation and we typically operate with as little as ten to twenty seconds of "padding". That doesn't mean that we're that close to an unsafe situation, we are that close to hitting the defined lines that maintains safe separation. When it becomes apparent that the line will be crossed, the arriving aircraft is usually sent around although it can sometimes be resolved by withholding a takeoff clearance.

Flying the 737, I probably have two or three ATC generated go-arounds a year.

Yesterday at LGA, where they land and depart on intersecting runways, I heard an AAL flight have it's takeoff clearance cancelled twice between, in each case, it did not start rolling fast enough to get through the runway intersection with the required spacing on the arriving aircraft. I has pleased that the LGA controller was able to cancel the takeoff clearance in each case as we would have been the aircraft to have to go-around on the second instance if she had not.

If you're interested in the details of the runway separation requirements they can be found in FAA Order 7110.65W which is the regulations under which ATC operates.
Thank you for that. Clear and informing comments.
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Old Aug 24, 2017, 10:41 am
  #6605  
 
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Originally Posted by manstein58
A question I would like to see answered is how often do planes abort their landing approaches because ATC has cleared another aircraft to take off on the same runway. This happened Tuesday at CLT about 0.5 miles from the runway at an altitude of 3-400 feet. Pilot banked the 737 hard to port and pounded the power. When he came back ion the IC to let the PAX know what had happened, he was not a happy pilot.
That is very rare as it is considered the worst go around to have as you now have a plane climbing before the runway with one taking off which puts them into immediate conflict with no good resolution. If an aircraft is just in position it is not as much of a concern as you have no in air conflict just the chance a pilot will miss the go around instruction or be unable to do it in time.

In 10+ years as a controller I have only seen it happen twice with a aircraft in position and never with one rolling. The most common go around do to aircraft on a runway is with landing traffic that the preceding one exited slowly for some reason and was not going to be off the runway in time. In the winter we try and build in extra separation to account that planes will exit slowly and on ILS and RNAV approaches it is easy to do, on visuals not so much.

Originally Posted by LarryJ
Actually, "cleared to" does not mean direct. It is a change in your clearance limit following that same routing that you were already on. You need the word "direct" in there for it to change the routing.
Isn't that what I said?

Originally Posted by LarryJ
The FAA puts readback mistakes 100% on the controllers AND 100% on the pilots. ATC's failure to catch a pilot's incorrect readback does not get us off the hook for not following the actual clearance given.
Based on what we have seen that doesn't seem true. We just had one where a mainline pilot did not use their full callsign on a visual approach, proceed to seemingly try and cut the aircraft off that he was following which resulted in a go around as he was way too close and tapes being pulled. The ruling was that since the full call sign was not used the clearance was not issued and visual separation was not applied. We then argued that if no clearance was ever issued that the pilot deviated from control instructions as he turned off of his assigned base leg, that was rejected with the rationale that pilots are not responsible for read backs or any loss of separation that may occur do to them.
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Old Aug 24, 2017, 10:48 am
  #6606  
 
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Originally Posted by ROCAT
Based on what we have seen that doesn't seem true.
I don't know who "we" are. Each individual case is different and decisions can be made due to other factors.

There is disagreement on this issue between the NTSB and the FAA. The FAA's position is as I described. See the following link for a summary from AOPA.

https://www.aopa.org/advocacy/advoca...tions-squarely
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Old Aug 24, 2017, 10:58 am
  #6607  
 
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Originally Posted by LarryJ
I don't know who "we" are. Each individual case is different and decisions can be made due to other factors.

There is disagreement on this issue between the NTSB and the FAA. The FAA's position is as I described. See the following link for a summary from AOPA.

https://www.aopa.org/advocacy/advoca...tions-squarely
The AOV is telling the controllers and management something very diffrent.
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Old Aug 24, 2017, 12:23 pm
  #6608  
 
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Originally Posted by ROCAT
The AOV is telling the controllers and management something very diffrent.
Not being a controller, I have not seen any of those communications, only what the FAA has published on the issue.

I think it goes back to my original comment that the FAA will hold both sides 100% accountable. The pilot's mistake does not relieve the controller's responsibility and the controller's failure to recognize the wrong readback does not relieve the pilot's. We both get violated.

And we both fill out our respective ATSAP and ASAP reports!
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Old Sep 12, 2017, 4:44 am
  #6609  
 
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Go-around after touch down

I was on LH480 MUC-DEN on 9/11. The plane was an Airbus 340-600.
Upon landing, we made very hard contact with the runway and then took off again.

The pilot came on after a few minutes and mentioned that something felt unstable because of the wind, so they decided to abort the landing.

I have been on a few go-arounds, but never after contact with the runway. I assume we "managed" to touch down due to a delay associated with engines spooling up?

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/.../KDEN/tracklog
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Old Sep 12, 2017, 9:32 am
  #6610  
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Originally Posted by dimramon

The pilot came on after a few minutes and mentioned that something felt unstable because of the wind, so they decided to abort the landing.
How far down the runway were you? Wondering with hard landing if you came down fast and didn't have much runway left. Pure speculation of course.
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Old Sep 12, 2017, 10:14 am
  #6611  
 
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You can still go around after touching down. Very uncommon but it's not out of the question.
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Old Sep 12, 2017, 11:22 am
  #6612  
 
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Originally Posted by dimramon
I assume we "managed" to touch down due to a delay associated with engines spooling up?
The engines are already 'spooled' in final approach so there is no delay in adding power. Also, modern engines don't have the extreme lag from flight-idle to full power that the older designs had.

From the description, sounds like the reason for the go-around was the bounced landing. The reason from the bounced landing may have been the winds. A bounced landing can result in tail strikes or hitting the nose wheel first on subsequent touchdowns. Better to go-around than try to salvage the landing.
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Old Sep 12, 2017, 12:22 pm
  #6613  
 
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Originally Posted by EmailKid
How far down the runway were you? Wondering with hard landing if you came down fast and didn't have much runway left. Pure speculation of course.
Around the threshold zone, I believe. Some pax speculated the plane came in short.
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Old Oct 7, 2017, 11:31 am
  #6614  
 
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Curious what our resident pilots have to say about this article:

https://thepointsguy.com/2017/10/pil...gionals-400000

Are the numbers realistic?
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Old Oct 7, 2017, 11:44 am
  #6615  
 
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Originally Posted by mmayer
Curious what our resident pilots have to say about this article:

https://thepointsguy.com/2017/10/pil...gionals-400000

Are the numbers realistic?
Yeah wow, those numbers seem really high to me. I believe the captain from NYC-Tokyo salary, but the regional FO in his first year making 70k seems wild.
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