pOkE the pLaNeT

In the last few months Ive been training on both the Boeing 767 and the Boeing 757, and its an interesting exercise. Many years ago if you were an airline pilot you generally flew only one type of aircraft, say a 747 or a TriStar or a DC10. Then companies like Boeing and Airbus started to pitch common type training at the airlines. It goes like this... instead of having one bunch of pilots for the long range fleet and one bunch of pilots for the short range fleet, why not make the two planes similar enough that the same pilots could swap back and forth? Hence the 767/757 where one pilot can legally fly either aircraft type because they have so much in common.

Except they dont. Sure, the systems are pretty close as is the cockpit layout, but there are enough differences to make you think. First, what they have in common:

The cockpit is covered in walrus vomit brown plastic and brown paint. All I can think is Boeing got a great deal on this shade and it helps keep the pilots awake because waking up with this in your face could cause a heart attack. Stowage for documents in any aircraft is never enough but in Boeings its awkward. The fully electronic seats are ok (but I much preferred the old manual Fokker seats), the controls are nicely sized (european aircraft seem to have smaller dials, smaller knobs and levers) and the aircon is brilliant. We had aircon systems on our Fokkers that used to get contaminated to the point where nothing worthwhile came through. On the Boeings you could chill beef with the things.

The differences? Boeings can come with any of three different engines, and memorising the different operating limitations is like memorising a small address book. The 767 handles like an apartment block off autopilot, at least in the early days, but the 757 handle very nicely indeed, not unlike a Fokker. All thats missing is a gunsight and a couple of cannons. In turbulence the 757 is pure misery... it has a nice long wing and a long thin body and sitting at the extreme nose you get bounced around. The 767 feels far more solid in turbulence.

The big difference though is on takeoff and landing. I hate the 767 because Im a ham fisted pilot and this plane has pitch and bank tolerances that need a lot of respect. What that means is the body is so long and low that when you pull the nose up on takeoff the tail comes within 24 inches of the ground. Have only one engine working during rotation and it can come within 12 inches. Mess up your speeds and it gets even worse. The 757 on the other hand has much better clearance with nice long legs and a high body. After years of flying planes with engines mounted on the body I am now flying planes with engines slung under the wings. Thats a bit of a stressor because it means the engines are now close to the ground and a bad crosswind landing can mean a 'pod strike'. which means hitting the runway with the engine pod.

Planes really do have personalities. So next time you're at the airport and you see a 767 take off, watch how close the tail skid (theres a retractable one to protect the body) comes to the runway at liftoff. 24 inches for a plane weighing 185 tonnes doing maybe 160 knots is something worth watching.

K

I work in the airline industry and every once in a while you change fleets and they put you on a new aircraft. Usually that isnt such a big deal but I am now going from flying domestic on medium jets to flying purely international on heavies. Apparantly this is a move up though I would disagree... it just means I fix light fittings in asian hotel rooms instead of domestic ones.

Heres how it goes. You go from being a captain on a domestic jet to being a first officer on an international one, in this case a Boeing. You start by doing three months of ground school and simulator training and emergency procedures stuff which includes learning how to operate the doors in an evacuation etc etc. Two points... everyone whacks their tail bone on the bloody emergency slide at the 747 simulator and no one gets in the liferaft without assistance in the pool exercise. The good news is that if you mess up in the raft seating exercise you have to move around a lot and its a God given opportunity to bump into wet flight attendants in bunny suits, some of them even being female. Mess up too often and they get suspicious.

After you pass the initial training you do line training, which is where you fly around for a couple of months with a training captain. Its bad enough on domestic but on international the learning curve is massive. You also see how aviation is done in different countries and to be honest I want my comforter back. Examples:

Taxying around Narita airport in Tokyo you notice security barriers right where the middle of where runway 34R should be. Why? When they built the airport the farmers who own the land went all militant and to date they havent been able to take over the land where the middle of the runway was planned, so they have security barriers surrounding the farms. Go on to Google Map, look up Narita Airport Tokyo and spot the farm where the runway on the north side of the field should be.

In Manila the precision approach aids dont work and the taxiways have potholes, and the crew hotel has a strip joint in the basement which seems to account for all of the pilots allowances in one evening. In Singapore they frisk you getting OFF the plane before allowing you into the terminal, at least when you come from Manila. Its all very interesting but if I have one more security employee grope my crotch looking for a weapon Im insisting they buy me dinner afterwards.

The tough part? Apart from interpreting the instructions from the controllers (except for San Francisco, who handle air traffic over Micronesia), its getting used to the sleep pattern. I now sleep until 11.00 am and stay awake until three am, because all of our flights run from dusk till dawn. I feel like a vampire with a samsonite.

K

It's been what seems like forever since we've been to the Balkans. We will be heading out this friday, flying into Dubrovnik but catching a bus down to Montenegro straight away. Was in Crna Gora (Montenegro) 2004ish last but it was at the end of a 3 week jaunt so I am kinda fuzzy on the memories. Mostly I remember eveywhere we ate always seemed to total 13 euros no matter how much we drank, Bill got nosey & coulda got shot and the locals were nice. Our 3 weeks will also encompass Albania, which we've never been to. Except for the capital Tirana, it is said to be more "rustic" of the balkan region and I can't wait! Maybe if there is time we will go to Macedonia and/ or Kosovo. This is a fact finding mission so I hope 3 weeks will be enough time to learn what we need to know.

I ride a Moto Guzzi. Let me ammend that last statement... I ride a Moto Guzzi when it works.

So far Ive done a couple of hundred miles on the thing and it simply refused to start this weekend. I thought it was the battery but, no, thats fine, so its either a relay or a switch or a starter motor. Heres the thing: look online and you find this fault is so common it has its own threads. Rats. When I was in Vegas I asked Pat Clark Motorcycles how many Guzzis they sold each year and I was surprised to find its was something like half a dozen, if that. Vegas is a Harley city with two of the biggest dealerships Ive ever seen and it surprised me that a region with such fantastic roads sold so few touring Guzzis. Mind you I was also told bikers with full leathers dehydrate terribly in the heat, and its no different here. Whats different here are the prices... Guzzis are comparable with U.S prices but Harleys cost a fortune.

Whats really annoying however is my cheap Indonesian Yamaha 225 which cost far less than the Guzzi keeps putting along like the energiser bunny without a single complaint. Hmm. Interestingly enough in a company with more than a few bikers I find not one rides a Harley, the closest being one guy with a Buell. It seems pilots ride BMW's, Yamahas, Suzukis and Ducatis, but not Harleys.

Bailouts. Watching whats going on in the U.S its interesting to see how Australia has handled this crisis. The government first threw out a thousand dollars spending money to every registered taxpayer (including Im told, the dead, foreign passport holders and quite possibly one or two family pets named Stanley). Now we have another burst of cash coming in the form of something like $900.00, but far from spending the money people are saving it or paying down debt. Big surprise huh? Those who are spending it are spending it on imported goods, like italian starter motors.

K

Watched the U.S Air Airbus crash in the Hudson and its a very interesting case from an pilots point of view. One thing I found odd was a figure given on the major media networks that 'planes hit birds about once in every ten thousand flights'? Huh? Try once in every two hundred.

Pilots are not only required to report actual bird strikes but they are also asked to report near strikes. From experience, most pilots I know simply dont bother reporting near misses and I would say only half report actual strikes. It all depends on the standard of airmanship and discipline at a given company, but many guys disregard incidents where a small sparrow size bird strikes a wheel or a wing. If its a larger bird, they will file a report if only to explain the mess along the side of the plane. If it goes down an engine the result depends on the speed of the plane, the size of the bird, and the type of engine. Old military type engines were small and tough, while modern engines are also strong but have large fan blades which present more surface area, increasing the chance of a strike.

If your engine does eat a bird, you usually get a bang and a shudder as the engines blades absorb the shock, and moments later you might get a smell of roasted meat as the carcass passes through the engine and the aroma is pumped into the plane through the bleed air/ air con pack system. One result is often that a blade is now askew, and the result is a vibration that, if powerful enough, will require an engine shutdown. Thats not a problem, as all multi engined planes are certified to fly perfectly well with an engine shut down during all phases of flight.

Losing two engines however is a different matter. In this case it looks like the airliner went through a flock of birds and each engine took a fatal hit. Thats quite remarkable as a statistic and it doesnt happen very often, but when it does its usually geese. I dont know what these birds were but the problem around many airports is they are built near swamps or coastlines or have refuse dumping sites nearby, all of which attract birds. Bird dispersal can involve shooting, sonic cannons, egg collecting, grass cutting to specific height to discourage nesting by certain breeds, falconry and even an automated aerosol unit that sprays a citric acid concoction into the air at regular intervals, which irritates the birds eyes and senses.

The smallest bird Ive knowingly killed has been a rainbow beeater, while the largest was a hornbill which destroyed an engine on an Embraer E110 I was flying at the time. Ive ingested one flying fox (bat) which destroyed a second engine, this time on a Fokker F28, and have probably struck about thirty raptors, mostly New Guinea Kite Hawks in the Markham Valley. The largest bird Ive nearly hit was a pelican which actually flew alongside my Cessna while I was landing, while a close second was a stork that flew across my path from right to left... at eight thousand feet. It was flying across a valley from one mountain range to another. I believe the record for a bird strike is a condor or something similar above 20,000 feet.

Once every ten thousand flights? I have just over 10,000 hours flying experience and reckon Ive hit at least 200 birds.