Tartan Monkey Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Aye we can, Sunday mornings are my favourite shift! Absolutely. There would be no job for us if we didn't have some pilots to keep right I jest - commercial pilots do a fantastic job. No way you'd catch me on an unmanned aircraft. The technology isn't there, and isn't going to be for a long time. Like I said..... Mutual respect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maq Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 And all the birds love pilots, all they do is what they are told by the real professionals on the ground, the ATC guys who juggle hundreds of planes. Utter nonsense. Commercial pilots are overwhelmingly fantastic professionals. You've obviously no idea of all that the job entails Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tartan Monkey Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Seriously? You need to compare what you have now to the 80s for example. Technology has increased efficiency so much that you can now do the job of what was previously 4 people. Your computer systems make the whole piloting much safer and easier. TCAS, for example. Imagine life without it? Basic moving maps, EVS thermal imaging, accurate weather info. Real time system analytics. Envelope protection. We're not even onto the autopilot features...Autothrottle/cruise control, autolanding Pilots these days...don't know they're born Yes I can imagine life without TCAS, I flew before we had it. No, we can't do the job of 4 people, 2 pilots now do the job of 3 (we have no flight engineer). Again though an increase in technology brings its own problems. Of course it has made things safer in general, but we now fly aeroplanes that can fly for 17-18hrs non stop, so imagine what that does to the body. In the 1980s that didn't happen. We do not have thermal imaging on commercial aeroplanes. Technology is great when it works. Ever heard of the Qantas A380 that had the uncontained engine failure out of Singapore? The computer designed systems failed, fed the pilots a lot of bad information, locked them out of certain controls and had it not been for the pilots on the flight deck everyone would have died. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 (edited) My point is that not many people get a PPL with 45 hrs. Regardless I believe you are comparing the ability required to attain a recreational flying licence with the requirements for a professional flying licence. It's like comparing someone that owns a sail boat to the captain of the QM2. It's similar in basics only. Not really sure what the significance of the multiple choice question papers are. Have you ever seen them? They are by no means easy. The pass mark is 75% per paper, of which there were 15 exams. these are taken in 2 blocks over 3 days. You must pass all exams at 75% to pass the ground school subjects. There are then 5 flying tests to pass in the aircraft (not including simulator). Then once you get a licence you need to get a job, which can take years, I was very lucky. You then do an intensive ground school course on the actual aircraft you will be flying (737/A320 whatever). Once you pass that you must undertake simulator training on the specific aircraft. Once that is done you will move onto all the safety and security courses, first aid, human factors, legal training and company procedures. Then you get to fly the aeroplane, but only under training which is very intense and to a high standard. Once the training is finished you are released "to the line" to commence passenger operations. Every 6 months you spend 2 days in the classroom and 2 days in the simulator under assessment. If you don't perform your job is on the line. Also you must pass your medical a flying "line check" every year. The cost of the training to get you the to that first job is around £100,000 - 150,000, which you need to find and pay. So I'm not sure why you are intent on making out like it's easy and that we do nothing. I'm not making any comparison, i'm just stating that you can fly anywhere in europe (possible the world) with several people in a single prop, after 45 hours experience and a multi-choice exam. the problem with multi-choice is the answer is always provided for you, Which instantly make it much easier than a question that doesn't supply the answer. This is an axiom in teaching, supplying the answer makes the test considerably easier, it's pretty intuitive for most folk. On the number of exams from the website You will also be required to take multiple choice exams in 9 subjects: Air Law (to be passed before your first solo) Operational Procedures Meteorology Navigation Flight Performance & Planning Aircraft General Knowledge Principles of Flight Human Performance Radio Telephony Dude i'm not arguing your knowledge on commercial air-flight, my first interaction was to state in the context of unmanned flight was that engineers are better suited to answer the question than pilots are. Also making the assessment that it's a lot harder to learn to build a plane than it is to fly one. I'm not debating the process for becoming a commercial pilot or saying it is easy or quick. However there was a reason it took thousands of years of human understanding till we were at the point of being able build soemthing able to fly, and then 52 weeks from start to finish to be allowed to pilot in world war II. Edited March 27, 2015 by phart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bristolhibby Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 I'd be happy to give my opinion if you like. I'm an airline pilot, I have been for the past 16 years. I have flown regional turbo props around the Mainland UK and the Scottish Highlands ans Islands. I've flown Boeing 737,757,767 and I have flown as both first officer and captain. I current fly the Boeing 777 all over the world and I now live in the Middle East. I have over 9000hrs flying time and I started to learn to fly when I was still at school aged 16 (20 years ago). Now that you have my CV, let's have a chat about what pilots do and don't do........ First of all I'd like to say that this incident made me feel physically sick. Even now I cannot get my head around it. Many of my friends and colleagues feel the same. This guy obviously hid his illness very well, although it now turns out that the German aviation authorities knew about his illness and decided that he needed regular psychiatric evaluation. I find it shocking that he wasn't grounded. Let's rememebr pilots are human beings too. Work stress, divorce, lack of career opportunities, bereavement, financial strains all affect pilots the same way they affect everyone. Unfortunately our industry isn't so forgiving when it comes to this. One isn't seem to have "the right stuff" if one was to admit to problems. We are supposed to get on with things. Personally I hope that this incident raises the issue and allows those who suffer and can't cope, to get the help they need. The locked flight deck door came into our professional lives in the wake of 9-11. It's a necessary evil. We simply cannot achieve 100% security and 100% safety. It's not a line that the public want to hear, but we can't achieve it in every day life either. Since 1997 there have been 3 pilot murder/suicides that I am aware of (including Tuesday's). It's not a regular occurrence, but it sadly has happened in the past. I most certainly do not think that remotely flown aircraft is the answer. The technology simply is not there to support such a thing and I can't see it in my lifetime. There are a multitude of things that happen on flights everyday that require a pilot to deal with that a computer couldn't. Unmanned Aircraft crash on a regular basis, I know of one UAV designer who says he would never fly on a remotely flown airliner. Pilots are highly trained, highly dedecated people who take their profession very seriously. We do not sit and look out the window doing nothing. The aeroplane cannot take off on its own, we land the aeroplane whenever we can. We usually only use the autoland facility when the visibility dictates that we must, it isn't us being lazy, it isn't that we can't fly in fog, but regulations dictate that we must autoland when visibility is low. This allows us to monitor the systems and to obtain the legally required visual minimus at our decision height to safely land the aeroplane under these conditions. To get back to the point, I think that this is a very rare event, an absolute tragedy for everyone involved. It has shaken the entire industry, but as we do in this business we will learn from it. Things will change to reduce the likelihood of this happening again, and as I said hopefully those who need the help will get it. If there are any specific questions then fire away. Thanks Tartan Monkey, a good insight into your business. I was wondering about this two people in the cockpit. It seems pretty arbitrary (until yesterday) whether this was implemented as a policy or not. Given that there has been 3? Incidents and highly likely they the missing Malasyan Air was a murder/suicide, why was this not a world wide industry standard operating procedure. It seems to me (as a lay man) that these prior incidents happened in the developing world, so didn't matter, when infact as we have seen, the industry can act very quickly when it wants to. Some real questions need to be asked. Cheers J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tartan Monkey Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 the whole boeing twin engine 777 was designed by engineering models on computer. it was built AFTER it was designed and worked a treat. Agreed. It was the first Boeing that embraced CAD. After the first few airframes were built they went on a rigorous flight test schedule flown by the test pilots and flight test engineers. So it's a collaborative process. I don't think anyone said that engineers didn't design aeroplanes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 One thing i find weird how come the Ukrainian one that went down black box hasn't said anything yet, this one was 24 hours to decipher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tartan Monkey Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 I'm not making any comparison, i'm just stating that you can fly anywhere in europe (possible the world) with several people in a single prop, after 45 hours experience and a multi-choice exam. the problem with multi-choice is the answer is always provided for you, Which instantly make it much easier than a question that doesn't supply the answer. This is an axiom in teaching, supplying the answer makes the test considerably easier, it's pretty intuitive for most folk. On the number of exams from the website You will also be required to take multiple choice exams in 9 subjects: Air Law (to be passed before your first solo) Operational Procedures Meteorology Navigation Flight Performance & Planning Aircraft General Knowledge Principles of Flight Human Performance Radio Telephony Dude i'm not arguing your knowledge on commercial air-flight, my first interaction was to state in the context of unmanned flight was that engineers are better suited to answer the question than pilots are. Also making the assessment that it's a lot harder to learn to build a plane than it is to fly one. I'm not debating the process for becoming a commercial pilot or saying it is easy or quick. However there was a reason it took thousands of years of human understanding till we were at the point of being able build soemthing able to fly, and then 52 weeks from start to finish to be allowed to pilot in world war II. Yes. That is the PPL syllabus, which most of us did before embarking on professional training. Anyway, back to your point. Comparing difficulty level of building aeroplanes (I assume you mean designing) and flying one is like saying it's harder to design a formula 1 car than to drive one. It's a different set of skills. You are not comparing apples with apples, but I will agree to say, yes they are both difficult. By the way you can buy kit planes and build one in your garage, I know several people who have. As for the multi choice exam. The UK CAA didn't alway provide the correct answer, they sometimes provided 4 incorrect answers, it was up to us to determine which one was the most correct. Also many of the questions had triple negatives, so working out that they were asking was a challange. Every question that had an equation to work out always has the correct (or most correct) answer and the 3 answers with the most common mistakes to lead you there. Also they used to be negatively marked, so everyone you got wrong got marks off. You didn't dare guess. Anyway. Thanks for the discussion. If nothing else you now have googled all the info on getting a PPL, so get out there and take some flying lessons...... You might enjoy it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaid Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 One thing i find weird how come the Ukrainian one that went down black box hasn't said anything yet, this one was 24 hours to decipher. I thought the black box data confirmed the plane was shot down. I don't think the black box can say *who* shot it down though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tartan Monkey Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Thanks Tartan Monkey, a good insight into your business. I was wondering about this two people in the cockpit. It seems pretty arbitrary (until yesterday) whether this was implemented as a policy or not. Given that there has been 3? Incidents and highly likely they the missing Malasyan Air was a murder/suicide, why was this not a world wide industry standard operating procedure. It seems to me (as a lay man) that these prior incidents happened in the developing world, so didn't matter, when infact as we have seen, the industry can act very quickly when it wants to. Some real questions need to be asked. Cheers J In all honesty I don't know. The airlines I worked for post 9-11 doors, always had 2 people in the cockpit when one of the pilots went out. It was left up to the airline to do as the please. I guess that will change now, it will become mandatory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 I thought the black box data confirmed the plane was shot down. I don't think the black box can say *who* shot it down though. Really? it was only Ukrainian jets near it on radar , very possible it just whooshed over my head, i'll need to go look that up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scunnered Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 One thing i find weird how come the Ukrainian one that went down black box hasn't said anything yet, this one was 24 hours to decipher. The West aren't trying to start a war with Germany/France. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tartan Monkey Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 I thought the black box data confirmed the plane was shot down. I don't think the black box can say *who* shot it down though. Yeah, given the suddenness of it, you wouldn't have heard much except perhaps the explosion. It doesn't really add much to the investigation. Again the flight data recorder wouldn't tell them much. Incidentally I was flying an hour ahead of the Malaysian that was shot down on exactly the same route. Had a LARGE whisky when I got home that night. Not nice at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UPROAR Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 but can you fly a plane though? That's the important distinction. my company (and previous companies) work on safety cases for control systems. Humans are unpredictable and they are frankly unnecessary... There’s an old joke among aeronautical engineers: The cockpit of the future will feature a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog; the dog is there to bite the man if he touches anything. The USAF now has pilotless F-16 and is blowing the cr@p out of terrorists in at least 3 countries... its almost time..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scunnered Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 The USAF now has pilotless F-16 and is blowing the cr@p out of terrorists in at least 3 countries... That's comforting... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tartan Monkey Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 my company (and previous companies) work on safety cases for control systems. Humans are unpredictable and they are frankly unnecessary... There’s an old joke among aeronautical engineers: The cockpit of the future will feature a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog; the dog is there to bite the man if he touches anything. The USAF now has pilotless F-16 and is blowing the cr@p out of terrorists in at least 3 countries... its almost time..... And with all due respect we shall agree to disagree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 (edited) Yes. That is the PPL syllabus, which most of us did before embarking on professional training. Anyway, back to your point. Comparing difficulty level of building aeroplanes (I assume you mean designing) and flying one is like saying it's harder to design a formula 1 car than to drive one. It's a different set of skills. You are not comparing apples with apples, but I will agree to say, yes they are both difficult. By the way you can buy kit planes and build one in your garage, I know several people who have. As for the multi choice exam. The UK CAA didn't alway provide the correct answer, they sometimes provided 4 incorrect answers, it was up to us to determine which one was the most correct. Also many of the questions had triple negatives, so working out that they were asking was a challange. Every question that had an equation to work out always has the correct (or most correct) answer and the 3 answers with the most common mistakes to lead you there. Also they used to be negatively marked, so everyone you got wrong got marks off. You didn't dare guess. Anyway. Thanks for the discussion. If nothing else you now have googled all the info on getting a PPL, so get out there and take some flying lessons...... You might enjoy it! Nothing wrong with googling though, saves you saying there are 15 tests when there is only 9. Use the tools the software tools the engineers gave you mate, eliminate this human error element, and that brings us nicely full circle. you've already made a distinction between assembling and designing though? with regards to kit planes. so that point is made irrelevant with your own preceding sentences. Yes i mean designing i made that distinction earlier in the thread to you, you mustn't have been able to retain the information or never read it correctly. (passive aggression is fun isn't it lol) Yes it is exactly like that, Yes they take different skills, but we can measure how long it takes, making it apples for apples in time to learn. Which in this case is normally seen as a function of difficulty. Baking a cake and removing a blood clot from the right hemisphere of a 89 year old brain are apples and oranges too, using your logic there is no way to tell what is more difficult, when in actual fact it's pretty easy, despite how much the baker might moan. The folk i know just used this or the older one might be the confuser? Dude i was in the cadets for 8 years, i had enough hours but no money for a pilot license, i've taken off and landed (with pilot on board) chipmunks and bulldogs. Done my glider solo through the cadets, again no money to continue outside of cadets though. I've been in the flight deck of Nimrods, hercules, all RAF helicopters, i don't have 9000 air hours though, just under a hundred i think. I used to volunteer at cadets, about 5-6 of my friends fly, as i said earlier one is a typhoon pilot (and unmanned drones when it was based in Nevada). Nothing wrong with googling though, saves you saying there are 15 tests when there is only 9. Use the tools the software tools the engineers gave you mate, eliminate this human error element, and that brings us nicely full circle. Edited March 27, 2015 by phart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 (edited) my company (and previous companies) work on safety cases for control systems. Humans are unpredictable and they are frankly unnecessary... There’s an old joke among aeronautical engineers: The cockpit of the future will feature a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog; the dog is there to bite the man if he touches anything. The USAF now has pilotless F-16 and is blowing the cr@p out of terrorists in at least 3 countries... its almost time..... One of my old uni-mates is a post doc researcher in Texas for Aeronautical engineering, i'm just parrotting a lot of what he says, i think he might have set me up though seeing a pilots reaction to what he told me about relative difficulty, the passive aggression is overwhelming. Edited March 27, 2015 by phart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaid Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 The West aren't trying to start a war with Germany/France. Well of course, if anything is being withheld it'll be to do with politics rather than air crash investigations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Well of course, if anything is being withheld it'll be to do with politics rather than air crash investigations. It was everyone saying explosion that threw me off. "consistent with the damage that would be expected from a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside" so it was destroyed by high speed projectiles ramming into it. at a height of 33,000 feet not sure much energy would retained after they ascended 33,000 feet. Did the Russian separatists have any aircraft in the air at the time to shoot it down? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Aye we can, Sunday mornings are my favourite shift! Absolutely. There would be no job for us if we didn't have some pilots to keep right I jest - commercial pilots do a fantastic job. No way you'd catch me on an unmanned aircraft. The technology isn't there, and isn't going to be for a long time. I knew an ATC called Sandy Sandford he was my CO at the cadets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 They've found torn up sick notes in his house, reportedly one for the day of the crash. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32087203 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tartan Monkey Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Nothing wrong with googling though, saves you saying there are 15 tests when there is only 9. Use the tools the software tools the engineers gave you mate, eliminate this human error element, and that brings us nicely full circle. you've already made a distinction between assembling and designing though? with regards to kit planes. so that point is made irrelevant with your own preceding sentences. Yes i mean designing i made that distinction earlier in the thread to you, you mustn't have been able to retain the information or never read it correctly. (passive aggression is fun isn't it lol) Yes it is exactly like that, Yes they take different skills, but we can measure how long it takes, making it apples for apples in time to learn. Which in this case is normally seen as a function of difficulty. Baking a cake and removing a blood clot from the right hemisphere of a 89 year old brain are apples and oranges too, using your logic there is no way to tell what is more difficult, when in actual fact it's pretty easy, despite how much the baker might moan. The folk i know just used this or the older one might be the confuser? Dude i was in the cadets for 8 years, i had enough hours but no money for a pilot license, i've taken off and landed (with pilot on board) chipmunks and bulldogs. Done my glider solo through the cadets, again no money to continue outside of cadets though. I've been in the flight deck of Nimrods, hercules, all RAF helicopters, i don't have 9000 air hours though, just under a hundred i think. I used to volunteer at cadets, about 5-6 of my friends fly, as i said earlier one is a typhoon pilot (and unmanned drones when it was based in Nevada). Nothing wrong with googling though, saves you saying there are 15 tests when there is only 9. Use the tools the software tools the engineers gave you mate, eliminate this human error element, and that brings us nicely full circle. Thanks for your rather informative post. I shall clarify for you. There were 9 subjects for the JAA (European regulation) Private Pilot's Licence. JAA has been superseded by EASA. When I did my Airline Transport Pilot's Licence in 1997, neither JAA nor EASA existed. My course was a UK CAA course and there were 15 exams. I know because I was there and I studied my nuts off every day to pass them. So there was no human error on my part (this time), but thanks for attempting to correct me. I was never in the Air Cadets myself, but I'm sure it was fun. I was actually trying to encourage you to go for lessons as you seem to have an interest in aviation. Clearly you don't take kindly to my opinion and that's up to you. I really couldn't care less. So I think we are about done with this "discussion". I came on here to offer a professional option as I was asked to do. I shall of course answer any questions to the best of my ability (all 15 exams worth) if anyone has them. So as you say, I think that rather brings us full circle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phart Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 I came on here to offer a professional option as I was asked to do. I shall of course answer any questions to the best of my ability (all 15 exams worth) if anyone has them. So as you say, I think that rather brings us full circle. - you posted twice on the thread before anyone asked anything of you.You came nowhere you were already here. So lets not get all historical revisionist. it's all written down in this thread what happened and the chronology of the happening. I'm also sorry my opinion that engineering is not only more difficult than piloting it is also the better profession for answering the question on un-manned flight has damaged your ego to the extent you're now being extremely passive aggressive with one of the people who made that assertion and agreed to disagree with another. I'm now away to email the guy in Texas who informed me of the above "facts" and ask if he set me up with it, considering a pilots response. A bit like telling someone to say to a teacher, you get 8 weeks holiday, type of thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toepoke Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 For instance i can get a solo flight with minimal experience in hours, you think they'll let me build an actual plane with a 20 hour private engineering course? The disparity in knowledge and skills needed between flying a plane and building one is huge.By building i don't mean construction on parts being joined together, i mean creating an aircraft from scratch. Look at the ones that used to shake themselves apart because of the harmonics, comets or soemthing i think they were called. Not many engineers working in the aerospace industry could design and build an entire aircraft. It's a collaborative process involving millions of man-hours from diverse teams of specialist engineers/ designers and a global supply chain. The Airbus that crashed would've been assembled in at least 4 countries for a start. BTW the Comets didn't shake themselves apart IIRC, it was due to the previously unexperienced problem of metal fatigue in a pressurised cabin. Just an early entry on the long learning curve gleaned from commercial airline disasters. Of which this week's tragedy will be the latest... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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