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Ashatsea

RW Inflight Long Haul Question

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I hate to disillusion a lot of you folks, but I had a kitchen timer that I would set to remind me when to make my next position report.  :smile:

 

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I Earned My Spurs in Vietnam

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10 hours ago, Bluestar said:

I hate to disillusion a lot of you folks, but I had a kitchen timer that I would set to remind me when to make my next position report.  :smile:

 

Sounds pretty sensible to me.

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On 4/19/2018 at 5:08 AM, Bluestar said:

I hate to disillusion a lot of you folks, but I had a kitchen timer that I would set to remind me when to make my next position report.  :smile:

 

That sounds horribly out of date :happy:

We have a comms page where we can set reminders (waypoint, time, lat/long, altitude, fuel) .. the amount of timers i've set a timer and then forgotten what it was for :blush:

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2 hours ago, Los Pilotos said:

That sounds horribly out of date :happy:

Wilhelm is in that class of pilots that have flown and navigated with charts and sextants, stopwatches mandatory.  Sure it is dated, but I'll tell 'ya sonny we knew our stuff and were good at it.


Dan Downs KCRP

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My brother said that these days it’s easier due to phones, iPads and available internet. Besides he likes to shoot some pictures and... always enjoys “random” conversations during NAT crossings. 10 years ago a good book was also useful. Of course all of that is done once the standard oversight is maintained.


Tom Link

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4 hours ago, downscc said:

Wilhelm is in that class of pilots that have flown and navigated with charts and sextants, stopwatches mandatory.  Sure it is dated, but I'll tell 'ya sonny we knew our stuff and were good at it.

Now you're talking, Dan! 

Back in those olden times when GPS, INS and even VOR/DME's didn't exist, navigating was a mysterious art to most pilots.  Apart from using the sun and stars to navigate by, a qualified navigator would often have to use other navaids, such as NDB's, Doppler, Consol, Loran C and even the weather radar's coastal ground returns to determine the aircraft's position. I am reliably informed that there was also a system originally meant for shipping on some aircraft called Decca, which relied on four ground based radio stations and special charts to plot your position across the North Sea. They were referred to as the master, red, green and purple transmitters and the navigator or pilots would have a degree in mathematics to calculate their position using combinations and/or multiples of 6,8,9, and 5 - by which time they would most likely have suffered a lane slip because the aircraft was travelling too fast for the system to catch up.

Incidentally, have you ever wondered why the B744 Beacon Light switch has a LWR position?

Bertie        

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52 minutes ago, berts said:

Incidentally, have you ever wondered why the B744 Beacon Light switch has a LWR position?

Presumably the same reason that the smoke evacuation handle exists?

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19 hours ago, berts said:

Incidentally, have you ever wondered why the B744 Beacon Light switch has a LWR position?

My guess is to be able to turn off upper beacon, which is located above the cockpit, for anyone of several reasons such as night IMC or since we are on this subject, perhaps to allow shooting the moon or stars??


Dan Downs KCRP

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4 hours ago, downscc said:

My guess is to be able to turn off upper beacon, which is located above the cockpit, for anyone of several reasons such as night IMC or since we are on this subject, perhaps to allow shooting the moon or stars??

Correct! 

23 hours ago, skelsey said:

Presumably the same reason that the smoke evacuation handle exists?

You are both right.  The early B747's were fitted with three INS sets, but because their reliability was a bit of an unknown at the time a sextant was usually carried - just in case.  Turning the upper anti-collision beacon light off and opening the valve in the port would allow the sextant to be used.  The port is also used when it becomes necessary to evacuate smoke from the flight deck, so the LWR light position is now fairly redundant.

Bertie     

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4 hours ago, berts said:

The early B747's were fitted with three INS sets,

My first exposure to the triple INS was on the B707-320s. I'm trying to remember, some of them may have only had two.  The first airplane I remember flying with an observation bubble was the R4-D. 

I know I'm old.  ROFL


I Earned My Spurs in Vietnam

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17 hours ago, Bluestar said:

My first exposure to the triple INS was on the B707-320s. I'm trying to remember, some of them may have only had two.  The first airplane I remember flying with an observation bubble was the R4-D. 

I know I'm old.  ROFL

You're not old; just very experienced!

I'm fairly certain the majority of B707's would have been retrofitted with only two INS sets (e.g. Carousel IV's), if at all; probably because there wasn't enough space for three sets in the center console area and they would be very expensive at the time. Concorde also had three and those in the FsLabs Concorde seem to work very well. Can you imagine what Neil Armstrong would have given for three INS sets when the one he was using to land on the Moon suddenly came up with a 1201 alarm?!

Bertie

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On 4/14/2018 at 9:06 PM, Ashatsea said:

Once the aircraft is at cruise and the flight deck speakers are on and tuned. What is the FO and Second Officer doing (assuming the CAPT leaves the flight deck)? What are they required to check and what is the frequency? Do airlines specifically state that every *insert minute* the crew is required to scan all EICAS synoptics and verify fuel with FMC, and etc? Is their a RW airline procedure or checklist that they use?

Disclaimer I am not a RW pilot and the googles bring back no results.

Ash Keelson,

It really depends on which airspace you are flying through. I would have to say that a lot of times it is pretty boring. And this is why I hate long haul flying. 

In general, one of the FO will be assigned a duty as Relief commander when the captain is in the bunk. Then you have the other crew member Second officer or First officer Sit together with you. 

 

Most Pacific crossings are quite boring because waypoints are 400nm apart and you only need to make two HF calls for the whole 8 hours over the Pacific when CPDLC is working. You will see lots of traffics flying alone with you on the same route, just look at flight radar24, the airways is actually busy. 

 

One time, I followed a China Airline 777 from LAX all the way across the Pacific on the same route for 13 hours, he took of before me, and we maintained a 30nm separation the whole way.  The Magic of GPS and modern navigation system. 

 

Things gets a bit more interesting if you fly the airways up to ANC from Tokyo, you get some VHF coverage near Shemya. 

 

Sometimes, we will be busy  dodging around weather especially going down to Australia and South Africa. 

 

Or when we flying over busy airspace like Europe / India / China. We need to pay attention to other traffic and listen carefully to the radio.

 

We will also follow our route very closely when flying over the high ground over Himalayan ranges,  as there are various escape routes applicable to different segments of the route for either engine inop / cabin depressurisation. And these needs to be programmed into RTE2 so when we need them we can activate the route. 

 

In general, just know your MSA for depress,traffic and nearest suitable all the time. After a while these will be your 2nd nature, you won’t even need to think about ‘oh what should I do now?’, it just comes. 

And most importantly enjoy the first class meal if there’s any. 

Edited by Driverab330
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On 4/14/2018 at 11:12 AM, Los Pilotos said:

As for normal operations we're required to do time and fuel checks at least once every 60 minutes but most people I've flown with normally uses +-30 minutes. Other than that monitor radio and flight path (routing, airspace, terrain, weather etc) - and for myself I always play the game "What would I do if XYZ happened right now - what is my plan B and C"

Yes, yes, you certainly do all that stuff but after the 10-15 min that takes...you play Trivial Pursuit! C'mon old-timers - who else will admit this this with me?

And, in all seriousness, TP does indeed keep you awake and sharp.

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48 minutes ago, PopsBellNC said:

you play Trivial Pursuit! C'mon old-timers

Worked on my Masters. 🙂

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I Earned My Spurs in Vietnam

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On ‎4‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 12:44 AM, Driverab330 said:

Most Pacific crossings are quite boring

Spent a lot of time up on R220 especially in the winter?

Edited by Bluestar

I Earned My Spurs in Vietnam

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