United Pilot Q & A thread
 

I had a flight on a 738 during which some kind of hydraulic system failed. While on approach, one of the pilots announced over the PA that we had the problem and that they had to do an alternative procedure to get the gear down. Everything was fine in the end, and the only difference on the airplane I think I noticed was that there was no "clunk" as the gear came down, only a change in the wind noise. When we landed, there were several firetrucks meeting us at the runway, which the pilot also told us would happen. The landing was good and generally seemed normal. Perhaps it was gentler than normal on braking.

I didn't have time to stick around after the flight and talk to the pilots afterward since the flight had already been delayed departing due to other issues, but I had a few questions out of curiosity.

Since the landing gear were affected by the hydraulic system failure, does that mean it was "system A" that failed? I am using the terminology from this person's blog posts - link 1, link 2 - although I don't know if it is standard.

Were the firetrucks on hand in case of a brake fire? Are there other things that could also cause a fire when hydraulics fail?

ATC Delay
 

A few weeks ago, I was delayed out of DEN to IAH and subsequently missed an international question due to a ground stop at IAH. The Cpt informed us that the airport was closed but other carriers were still flying into IAH during the multi-hour ground stop. The FAA website showed the following and I am hoping someone can decipher it for me please :confused:


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9e9e9ed5bf.png

My understanding is that means UAL requested a ground stop from FAA, and FAA obliged. A simplistic explanation for why they might do that is they have too many flights scheduled for the conditions (reducing departures rate), and they need several hours to catch up with all the inbound ones already in the air.

That happens most often at hub airport when the hub carrier has had disruptions from weather and can't handle the normal volume of arrivals because the earlier departures are still there. In other words, it is to prevent a situation where an airline has 100 airplanes on the ground at an airport where they have only 50 gates.

Thanks for the explanation. So its a carrier requested ground stop due to an inability to keep up with Ops based on weather not a comprehensive airport closure?

Other local UA issues, not necessarily just weather although that is likely the most common, can cause this.
But the basic point, UA is saying it needs to halt new departures to that airport until the situation is addressed.

Yep, I get it now. I was trying to understand if it was a United ground stop or an airport-wide ground stop. Sounds like UA called it.

When you're writing up a "possible" log entry what criteria makes it worth writing up? Slightest chance it happened? Most likely happened but not certain? Somewhere in between?

Asking because... UA1698 ORD-CLE we boarded and then the captain announced that a previous crew had written up a "possible" wheel over speed leaving Denver and (to paraphrase) none of the options to resolve the write up had less than a several hour delay (downloading the QAR to see if it actually happened? 3-4 hours. Changing aircraft? Indefinite. Changing all 6 wheels [what were currently waiting on] at least 90 minutes)

The only way to know you had a wheel overspeed is by watching the ground speed display at liftoff. Due to the workload at that point, you aren't doing anything more than a quick glance at the GS indication. I'm not sure what led them to believe they had a possible overspeed. Either you see a GS above the limit or you don't. It sounds like they didn't see the GS over the limit but thought it might have gone over the limit. That would be a judgement call.

Thank you, as always, LarryJ.

One more since I've seen a number of last minute aircraft swaps over the past 2-3 weeks.

At UA is a "737 pilot a 737 pilot" as in any UA 737 pilot carries the ratings, etc. to fly any of the subfleets or do the ratings/qualifications depend on the individual pilot. For example if a 7M9 gets replaced by a 739, a 738 gets swapped to a 739, or a 73G turns into a 7M8 how likely is it that the original crew is flying it or does the type change mean scheduling is (possibly? probably? definitely?) recrewing it (I know the FA counts are also potentially different... but all of those require the same number of pilots ;) )

I had to wonder how a wheel could be "overspeed", and found this excellent explanation:

http://www.lb.boeing.com/commercial/...icle_04_1.html

IIRC this came up with WN, as (again IIRC) in response to "can pilots be certified on 737 Classic and 737 NG (as they were) plus MAX.

FAA said you can choose two, so if a pilot is certified on Classic, no go with MAX, but OK with NG and MAX.

Educated guess is UA adheres to FAA certifications, so they can swap with no problem since UA has not had 737 Classic in ages.

Plus I seem to recall that LarryJ has posted about flying both types.

All UA 737 pilots can fly all UA 737s. Similarly, all UA Airbus pilots can fly the 319, 320, and 321. They did have to complete A321 differences training before those airplane came online but, I believe, it was a remote course.

There is only one 737 type rating. As EmailKid said, the FAA will allow airlines to maintain qualifications on two of the four generations as a common qualification. SWA retired its last Classic, a 737-500 IIRC, before adding its first MAX.

On the 756 fleet, the pilots are qualified on the 757-200, 757-300, 767-300, and 767-400. The FAA allows that but a separate currency is tracked for the 767-400 which has a different EFIS system (the same as the 737 NGs). Pilots who don't fly a 767-400 often enough can lose their 767-400 qualification and have to regain it through additional training. The 767-400 pays more so those trips tend to go very senior. That results in more junior 756 pilots losing that qualification regularly. I believe that one of the sim sessions at each recurrent training course, once every 9 months, is done in the 767-400 to reset that currency.

Then there are supervised entry airports where the Captain must first fly into, and out of, with a check airman then much return once every three years to maintain the qualification. You also have qualifications for different parts of the world such as the North Atlantic, Pacific, etc.

One qualification that we do not have to maintain is night currency. We need the landing currency but, for operations under part 121, we don't have to maintain a separate night currency as pilots flying privately do.

It's all a lot easier now that computers keep track of all the currencies for us. Much easier than the manual process we used to do.

So I follow quite a few UA pilots on social media and recently saw one retired Captain (whose son currently is a FO at UA) post a photo of him in the Sim wearing what looked to be a crew badge. Pretty cool that he can do that -- so it made me wonder how does that work? When UA pilots hit mandatory retirement, do you get to keep your credentials for a certain amount of time or get lifetime access to the Sim "for fun"?

Retirees can get a retiree ID. None of us can use the sim for fun.