Quote from: Britney_413 on September 28, 2010, 03:32:06 AM
Interesting video. It certainly does seem like a lot of controls but I guess the rules are pretty strict. The last flight I took had a mechanical problem that delayed the flight. It was really quite annoying but I guess again there are strict protocols to follow for safety. This was just a short 50 minute flight but there was a cabin pressure problem. I guess they check these systems regularly because the pilot noticed the problem immediately. I felt my ears pop rather painfully at the same time the pilot announced the problem. I would have thought they could have simply flown at a low elevation but apparently this is prohibited as other air traffic (police and fire) uses that space. So we had to sit there on a grounded plane for a long time until they finally fixed it. The pilot announced they had to replace the unit and was non-chalant about it. Does this sound pretty standard to you? Several passengers seemed panicky and nervous and ended up transferring to another plane instead of staying on the existing one until it was fixed. Someone told me this would be considered a "major problem" yet it seemed minor to me but then again I guess what the passengers experience is very different than what the pilots see.
I guess I'm getting off track here but it is interesting to hear the wisdom of a pilot vs. just what passengers experience. I'm still not nervous about flying as long as there is reasonable security (meaning no bombs on board) and that the pilots are focused and the equipment in the aircraft is up to standards. Just curious if you have ever encountered what would be considered an emergency and how you handled it.
Failures can indeed been annoying, but passengers who are rude even more. I can't understand how people can possibly be rude to personnel when they are working on their safety.
Air conditioning and pressurization are indeed on the preliminary checklist. If a problem is present it will probably be noticed after powering the system or starting the engines. On normal flights the cabin pressure is kept equivalent to that at 8000 feet altitude. This is done to maintain passenger comfort without the need of building a stronger hull. The reason aircraft fly as high as possible is because it saves fuel. So if an aircraft flies to its destination at 8000 feet instead of at 40.000 feet altitude it will need a lot more fuel to reach it. Air-conditioning is fairly complex on an aircraft. Basically it works by drawing compressed air from inside the engines. The air is cooled down, water is removed and it is blown into the cabin. An electronic system maintains the pressure by regulating how much air leaves the aircraft again by opening and closing a valve in the hull.
When a machine becomes more complex the number of parts that fail will also increase. This is why we check everything before departure. When we detect a failure it does not immediately mean we ground the aircraft. In the flight deck we have a so called MEL or Minimum Equipment List. This document shows what parts may fail without compromising the safety and what the conditions are. Cabin pressurization is so important that most failures on this system must be fixed before a flight is performed. When you fly aircraft for a few years it becomes a second nature. Then we aren't taken aback by small failures like these anymore because we have become familiar with the machine, we see the big picture. It is very understandable that people who don't have this knowledge can be nervous because they don't know how and if it will affect the safety.
When I take family and friends out flying I generally use an aircraft that was already getting old when I was born. When I am asked if such an old machine is really safe I simply answer: "If it was unsafe it wouldn't have become this old."
I have experienced several failures in my lifetime and by far most of them were like the situation you described. Apart from these there were 3 failures that actually compromised safety, but thankfully I never had to declare an emergency.
When you look at statistics, professional pilots will experience an emergency only 1 or 2 times in their entire career.
The most memorable of the 3 failures happened when doing a sight seeing flight over The Netherlands for paying customers. When flying over a big river I saw the fuel meters indicated the right tank was empty. I knew it was full before departure because I look into the tanks before each flight leaving 2 possibilities: The instrument failed or I had a fuel leak which is very improbable. The fuel tanks are located in the wings so I realized that if I would let go of the control wheel the aircraft would start a slow turn to the left because that wing would be more heavy. I let go but the aircraft remained straight and level. I concluded it was an instrument failure and continued the sight seeing flight. Just in case I leaned the fuel/air mixture so less fuel would be used by the engine. Doing this the engine immediately failed. This is a moment when training results in quick, reflex like actions. I turned the aircraft to the shore (when flying above water I always make sure I fly high enough so I can reach land by gliding) and selected a meadow suitable for landing. Meanwhile I kept the propeller windmilling, increased the fuel/air mixture and checked if I was using all sparkplugs in the engine. The engine roared back to life again, I think the entire failure took no more than 7 to 10 seconds. My passengers didn't even realize what happened because I made up a silly excuse about switching gears.
Back on the ground I tested the engine and discovered that some of the spark plugs were not firing. They were probably tainted with residue from burned fuel.
Quote from: spacial on September 28, 2010, 05:15:23 AM
I rarely go on airplanes. But it seems to me that, if some idiot is killing passengers because you won't open the door, there is little point in opening the door, since he is going to kill everyone anyway and possibly a lot of people on the ground.
This tendency to confiscate anything that could be used as a weapon is really very silly. There will always be some things around to use. The last time I was on a flight, a long haul lasting 14 hours, I passed through the galley to get from the front to the back. To be honest, I was more worried about food contamination and the kitche knives, which were sitting on the counter, falling on the floor.
Before 9-11 aircraft were not used as actual weapons so the manner of dealing with unlawful interference was very different than they are now. Then it was regarded best to temporarily give in to the demands and land the aircraft to further negotiate. With the attacks it was realized that an aircraft can be used as a weapon very well and it was made clear that access to the flight deck should be denied all times when facing a hostage situation.
I think that terrorists only partially managed to bring fear. On the ground we have entered a vicious circle of enforced security and people finding ways to pass that security. In the air the largest change is that we don't always allow people to take a look on the flight deck anymore. On flights to the USA this is out of the question mainly because of air marshalls can report this. On flights in Europe however it depends on the crew. I usually allow people who can show me a pilots license to take a seat on the flightdeck.
Quote from: Dee_pntx on September 28, 2010, 09:54:54 AM
Oh gee, thanks for all that. Now I really want to fly. NOT...........
Add to that, the airplane that crash landed the other day on it's wing.
SCREW airplanes! 
Dear Dee, please don't torture yourself with these thoughts.
You can think about the gear-up landing you saw on the news, but you can also think about how it ended: nobody was hurt. Landings like these are actually pretty safe because the airframe takes all the damage:
Quote from: lilacwoman on September 28, 2010, 11:53:07 AM
lack of correct air pressure makes everyone go to sleep and then the plane just flies along until the fuel runs out then it plunges to earth.
last time I flew I was close to wing and amused to see the flap things extend ready for landing and the little ram cylinders that operate them were losing quite a bit of fluid.
Hypoxia is very dangerous because you don't realize that it is affecting you. You just feel a bit light headed and take things less serious. It can be compared with taking drugs. A fun experiment many pilots do is to get into a pressurized chamber to bring them in a state of hypoxia. Males are sometimes required to do simple psychological tests while the air is drawn away and in one test women were asked to apply makeup. They all felt they had a great time and did well on their tests, but when they recovered and they saw their writings and faces they realized how serious it was. The main point of this experiment is to be able to recognize hypoxia.
In this fragment you can hear a pilot in increasing state of hypoxia. Luckily air traffic control recognizes the symptoms and orders the aircraft to descent.
