The Aviators Thread

64Wing · Mar 20, 2022

Twocats
We have a B1, B2 and mechanic on every flight plus a belly full of MEL spares to prevent AOGs as we are squeezing 450 hours per month production out of 30+ year old 747s.

The shortage of good tech guys who can really trouble shoot and solve snags is all the airlines fault. They train us to be the best in the business and then want to pay us less than a guy fitting windows into your house, its no wonder great people have left the industry for better pay and conditions. A buddy of mine was let go by a Danish ACMI operation, he was one of those guys who would run his hand over it with his eyes closed and solve the snag. He is now working in a big Pharma company in Copenhagen on double the money with no intentions of ever coming back.

The solution I am considering for my PW4056 is to split it into major modules and belly freight it over and rebuild it on this side. I will save about $100k this way and six weeks.

My other issue is I bought two RR Trent 772s for the A330 in the USA, bloody things are 9500kg each and need a special permit to be transported by road as I discovered last week when I tried to move them from Arizona to Texas for storage. They will stay there until rates correct themselves.

Its good to see the freight dogs do well for a change and not be fighting over scraps like pre Covid. I always found cargo operators to pay more to the tech guys and treat them better than the self loading freight airlines like Ryanair.

All similar things I've heard from my more experienced friends. We work for a company that strictly does AOG work for any of several 91K, 135, and occasional 121 carriers. COVID actually proved to be pretty lucrative for certain segments of the market for sure. Heck, even in the pilot community the contracts are way WAY better than they were when I started flying. Looking at getting back into that now that you can actually feed yourself while doing it. Good news is: while wrenching for the past several years I've built quite the unique flying experience profile. 75% of my time is in complex twins, pressurized etc. Hoping it'll catch the eye of just the right company. If all else fails, I can play the mechanic card to maybe get a leg up over the other applicants.

Perhaps it's just wishful thinking... we'll find out within a year.

I like your idea to build the engine at its ultimate destination. At this point you're losing money by waiting for bids to get cheaper having the aircraft offline waiting on the engine. Might as well take whatever savings you can creatively muster.

I'm very curious to know how it goes for you

Twocats · Mar 21, 2022

64Wing
All similar things I've heard from my more experienced friends. We work for a company that strictly does AOG work for any of several 91K, 135, and occasional 121 carriers. COVID actually proved to be pretty lucrative for certain segments of the market for sure. Heck, even in the pilot community the contracts are way WAY better than they were when I started flying. Looking at getting back into that now that you can actually feed yourself while doing it. Good news is: while wrenching for the past several years I've built quite the unique flying experience profile. 75% of my time is in complex twins, pressurized etc. Hoping it'll catch the eye of just the right company. If all else fails, I can play the mechanic card to maybe get a leg up over the other applicants.

Perhaps it's just wishful thinking... we'll find out within a year.

I like your idea to build the engine at its ultimate destination. At this point you're losing money by waiting for bids to get cheaper having the aircraft offline waiting on the engine. Might as well take whatever savings you can creatively muster.

I'm very curious to know how it goes for you

Playing the mechanic card is the way to go to get yourself ahead for a flying job . Our DFO swung spanners and flew sideways before he got the Right hand seat so always prefers a guy with scars on his hands at the pointy end over a book smart sim ace.

I honestly don’t see the cargo market going backwards until at least 2025 so that’s where I would be looking if I were you. There is no glamour or sexy hostesses at the far end of the ramp in Almaty at 3am in minus 40 degrees but the fun to be had in other ways compensates for that.

We pay our techs more than we pay Co pilots and I truly believe the time of the tech is now. Finally the bean counters understand what a rare breed we are so if I were you I would fly for fun and swing spanners to put steaks on the table.

64Wing · Mar 22, 2022

Finished up a flap asym squawk on this Hawker. New phone let's me erase the company name on the sides of the fuselage, but brownie points if anyone can guess...

64Wing · Mar 22, 2022

Archer · Mar 28, 2022

Flying low to evade radar...but not evading street signs...

Twocats · Mar 30, 2022

A MadDog standing on its back legs is a sight to behold…..

Jones in LA · Mar 30, 2022

Getting ready to put away the little bird after my 5th training flight out of KBUR.

Becoming a competent hoverer finally appears to be possible. I'm still far from where I want to be, but at least it seems achievable. From what I can gather, for some people, it just "clicks" at one point. It's not working that way for me...for me, it's just small, incremental improvements.

DoctorEvil · Mar 30, 2022

Jones in LA
Getting ready to put away the little bird after my 5th training flight out of KBUR.

Becoming a competent hoverer finally appears to be possible. I'm still far from where I want to be, but at least it seems achievable. From what I can gather, for some people, it just "clicks" at one point. It's not working that way for me...for me, it's just small, incremental improvements.

I've always wondered how difficult it is to hover a helicopter. Does it require frequent control inputs? What do you find tricky? Any tips from your instructor? Sorry for all the questions 😁

JimInOz · Mar 30, 2022

Archer
Flying low to evade radar...but not evading street signs...

Malaysia, about 1979. We were deployed from the air base at Butterworth to the RSAF Tengah air base.
Forward crew went on C130s to set up and await the arrival of six Mirage III0 fighters.
Because the pilots were limited aerobatically due to the large 1700 litre ferry tanks (AKA big jugs) they had to find some other way to keep their adrenalin levels up.

Low flying seemed to be the answer. But put two or more pilots in the air together, and it becomes a competition.

It was therefore no surprise to us to see, as the first Mirage taxied in, large fronds of coconut palm jammed between the wing/tank pylon gap and the pylon and the tank. There was also a large dent under the nose of the tank that looked suspiciously about the diameter of a coconut.
The post flight aircrew briefing would have been interesting.

This is a Mirage with big jugs. As you can imagine, pulling more than about 3G would be detrimental to airframe structure/flight envelope.

Alpha · Mar 31, 2022

DoctorEvil · Mar 31, 2022

Alpha

Where did you find this document? Looks in pretty good nick for something that's over 80 years old.

Jones in LA · Mar 31, 2022

DoctorEvil
I've always wondered how difficult it is to hover a helicopter. Does it require frequent control inputs? What do you find tricky? Any tips from your instructor? Sorry for all the questions 😁

Those are good questions. Firstly, ahead of beginning actual flight lessons I had no idea how challenging learning to fly would be. I figured it would be more like learning to operate a different kind of car, with different buttons and controls and different traffic rules. Now I realize that whatever you learn to fly, whether it be rotorcraft or fixed-wing, it's going to require gaining a lot of finesse -- the kind of thing that is mostly gained by lots of time behind the stick.

I can't say much more about the process of learning to fly fixed-wing aircraft, but here's what I've experienced with rotorcraft so far. The helicopter I'm learning to fly in -- the Robinson R-22 -- is a small, lightweight, piston-powered two-seater. It is by far the most commonly used trainer in the world. Why is it so popular? Cost, simple as that. Two words that come to my mind about flying the R-22 are "unforgiving" and "squirrely" -- primarily due to the aircraft's light weight and simple rotor design. It would be possible to learn in a larger and presumably more forgiving aircraft, but that would be at a much higher cost. For helicopter usage and instructor time I'm paying about $350/hr; if I were to learn in a larger (4-seat) piston-powered helicopter like the Robinson R-44 it would cost around $600/hr, and a light turbine-powered helicopter would cost well over $1,000/hr to learn in. Now we understand why the R-22 is so popular.

Back to your specific questions. The control inputs required to fly the R-22 are very small, and necessarily precise, and require one to use both hands and both feet continuously. The most common tendency among student pilots is to use control inputs that are too large and poorly timed. After 5+ hours of instruction, I have acquired a reasonably good feel for the cyclic control (the "stick") while hovering; individually, the cyclic is the most difficult control to master, but I cannot yet hover competently while being in sole control of the cyclic+collective+torque (pedal) controls together; for me, it's a coordination thing and is going to take some time to sort out. A condensation of the advice I get from my instructor is: "smooth inputs" and "keep at it".

Here's a short video that addresses the challenging (and oftentimes frustrating) nature of learning to fly in the R-22

JimInOz · Mar 31, 2022

Loiter patterns.

The NATO way.

The Italian way.

Mad Dog · Mar 31, 2022

Jones in LA
…Two words that come to my mind about flying the R-22 are "unforgiving" and "squirrely"…

Yeppers…spot on!

When I left U.S. Navy active duty in 1992, I had thought about getting a rotorcraft ATP. I already had a commercial instrument rotorcraft rating via the military competency exam due to my experience flying the TH-57B/C Sea Ranger (basically a Bell Jet Ranger) and the SH-60B Seahawk…about 1,000 hours of rotorcraft military pilot time. I visited a civilian flight school that specialized in rotorcraft training and went up with a CFI to “see where I was at” regarding flying the R-22. Holy shit!!! What a wake up call!!! Even after about a 1.0 of instruction, I couldn’t even come close to obtaining a relatively stable hover. We won’t even talk about all the other crappy stuff that I exhibited. After the flight, the CFI politely stated that I would be spending a boat load of $$$ regarding getting a rotorcraft ATP…it was going to take a bunch of time to get me up to speed. That was my last flight in a helicopter.

Anyway…you’re right…“unforgiving” and “squirrely”…attempting to fly that R-22 was like trying to stand on a beach ball on a sheet of ice while wearing roller skates.

Jones in LA · Mar 31, 2022

I was soooo hoping to get your perspective on this rotorcraft thing, @Mad Dog . Thank you so much for taking the time to comment.

Mrs. Jones and I will be on holiday for the next 3 weeks so there will be a significant pause in my training (just as I was beginning to see a glimmer of hope), but I will come back, determined to soldier on in the R-22 😀

Mad Dog · Mar 31, 2022

Jones in LA
I was soooo hoping to get your perspective on this rotorcraft thing, @Mad Dog . Thank you so much for taking the time to comment.

Mrs. Jones and I will be on holiday for the next 3 weeks so there will be a significant pause in my training (just as I was beginning to see a glimmer of hope), but I will come back, determined to soldier on in the R-22 😀

DoctorEvil · Mar 31, 2022

@Jones in LA @Mad Dog
Thank you both for your comments. They've given me a greater appreciation of the challenge of flying helos vs fixed wing craft. Interesting that the R22 is actually more difficult to fly compared to a larger, faster turbine powered machine. I think the opposite might be the case for fixed wing craft (i.e. a Piper Cherokee would be easier to fly than a turbine trainer like a Pilatus PC-21)

Alpha · Mar 31, 2022

DoctorEvil
Where did you find this document? Looks in pretty good nick for something that's over 80 years old.

My apologies, National Museum of Flight - https://www.nms.ac.uk/national-museum-of-flight/

Mad Dog · Mar 31, 2022

Jones in LA
Getting ready to put away the little bird after my 5th training flight out of KBUR.

Becoming a competent hoverer finally appears to be possible. I'm still far from where I want to be, but at least it seems achievable. From what I can gather, for some people, it just "clicks" at one point. It's not working that way for me...for me, it's just small, incremental improvements.

In my humble opinion, there’s no such thing as an R22 pilot. What does exist is the R22 “manager of chaos”…and that dude [or dudette] is better than a pilot. I did not achieve R22 “manager of chaos” status. I want you to achieve R22 “manager of chaos” status…and when you do, please don’t rub my nose in it. 😁

Jones in LA · Mar 31, 2022

Mad Dog
In my humble opinion, there’s no such thing as an R22 pilot. What does exist is the R22 “manager of chaos”…and that dude [or dudette] is better than a pilot. I did not achieve R22 “manager of chaos” status. I want you to achieve R22 “manager of chaos” status…and when you do, please don’t rub my nose in it. 😁

Roger that, will do my best 😀

The Aviators Thread

64Wing

Twocats

64Wing

64Wing

Archer

Twocats

Jones in LA

DoctorEvil

JimInOz

Alpha

DoctorEvil

Jones in LA

JimInOz

Mad Dog

Jones in LA

Mad Dog

DoctorEvil

Alpha

Mad Dog

Jones in LA

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