A320 Inflight Emergency

[Guest ThrottleUp]

What a wicked landing! Mad skill :) I liked how he kept the nose off as long as he could!And the gear leg amazed me...those side loads must have been huge but it held and has saved the airline a massive hull-repair bill!!!!!

[Guest TWVA395]

Impressive landing. And I think he was calling the mechanics overpaid... HOWEVER, it's not like mechanics make a lot of money. So his point is still invalid.http://www.kthxdone.com/images/kw_ft.jpgKen Weik [link:maam.org|MAAM-SIM][link:library.avsim.net/search.php?CatID=root&SearchTerm=kenneth+weik&Sort=Added&ScanMode=0&Go=Change+View]My AFCADs

[rickalty 0]

"an average hourly flight time of 75hrs per month.... I have jumped to about $50,000/yr of pay."The typical non-union employee in the US has to work 75 hours a WEEK to make $50,000 a year. In any event, pilots are a non-typical case. Few other workers have to pay for their own training, nor pay to accumulate the experience needed to be eligible for their jobs. (When I got my MER I got a come-on from a regional cargo carrier offering me a "job" as First Officer getting minimum wage, but simultaneously paying THEM $55 - $95 an hour for "Industry Training")My comment was aimed at the industrial Unions - such as mechanics. $60/hr average for a mechanic IS overpaid, and the absurdly protectionist "Three men to do one mans job" Union rules ARe a sign of lazy and unmotivated workers. If I could have maintainance work that's currently done by Union workers moved to a place where it could be done by non-Union ones, I'd jump at it - and the people who flew in the planes would be safer.Richard

[rickalty 0]

Ken:"HOWEVER, it's not like mechanics make a lot of money."Really? The average for an airline's in-house mechanics is about $60/hr. Well over $100,000 a year before you do a single hour of overtime or collect any shift differential.Richard

[KevinAu 441]

You missed that entire point. The 75hrs of pay is only for stick time. We are on duty, that is preflighting, boarding, running between planes, waiting for flights, and running the three ring circus that is when everything is fubar trying to get the flight out, up to 16 hrs each day. Typical month has us on duty for 192hrs. Which means 117hrs of work is for free.How much work do you do for free,Richard? Anyways, if your comments were meant only for the stereotypical union industrial worker, then you should have said so in the first place, instead of making a broad offensive comment.

[Guest TWVA395]

A head mechanic might make 70,000 a year. An assistant's average pay is about 37,000. I'd really like to see you back up your sources. www.salary.com I'm looking at the median pay.http://www.kthxdone.com/images/kw_ft.jpgKen Weik [link:maam.org|MAAM-SIM][link:library.avsim.net/search.php?CatID=root&SearchTerm=kenneth+weik&Sort=Added&ScanMode=0&Go=Change+View]My AFCADs

[Guest B1900 Mech]

:-lol Thank's for backing me up Kevin,As an airline mechanic,I have seen it all. When I worked for contractor's in Alabama,Georga,Florida,South Carolina,ad'nausium,Working DC9's to 747's, I saw 100 times more hackage,dishonesty and stupidity than at any airline I was employed at. What misinformed people don't know is,that for every day the jet sit's in the contractor's hanger, they are fined thousand's.You have people working the jet that have never been to a class on it,let alone a school,and their moral charactor is usually suspect, I wouldn't let most of them near a any machinery.One instance off the top of my head,was a DC9 that had the fastners RTV'd into the R/H wing to fuselage fillet,because the nutplates were blown out,and they didn't want to take the interiour out to rivet new one's in.The flightcrew was coming from Atlanta to do the operational checkflight for relase back into airline service. Well at 300 kts on the climbout the fillet departed the a/c,and they had to return to Lakecity. As I was standing there observing the 3 ring circus,More enpty suits,(managers) than I had ever seen before came scurrying out of their hiding places like cockroaches. As they were getting ready to light off the engines to taxi back to the hanger,A layed off airline mechanic made the comment that as the engine inlet is in direct line with the wing root,maybe they might want to chech the #2 engine for FOD damage! This is just a minor example,I could list more.I am not saying we don't screw up at the airlines,We are human,But the idiotic remark made by a previous poster is a typical managment stooge ploy to wreck what little job security the middle class worker has left,all in the name of giving our pay cuts to wealthy wall street criminals that are running the airlines into the ground.Oh well, I guess that's the american way? well the few of us left in the industry that have morals are tiring of playing God every day for less money than an auto mechanic! Just think of what I have said when your sitting in a lawn dart that you can't pull off the side of the road when thing's go sour. Nice landing tho.:-)

[Guest adameke777]

>Very nice indeed.... touched it down very gently. Should be>several awards given for unbelievably inane comments by the>bubblehead TV commentators though.>>How about "I expect the family members will be relieved." ?Great job by the pilots, terrible attitude by the newsmedia smelling cheap sensation. Listening to the questions by the news anchors to the aviation experts, I had the impression that the former were looking forward to some "spectacular touchdown" (in terms of audio-visual effects) or maybe even something worse. In the end, the landing was spectacular, but in a completely different way ;-) A.G.

[Guest B1900 Mech]

Richard No mechanic's I know make $60 hr!

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"Union rules ARe a sign of lazy and unmotivated workers"Are you speaking of the airline industry, or all unions? My wife is part of a union, toils longer hours than I do AND most airline mechanics, and earns half as much as I do (I am non union). Without the union, she'd be lucky to earn a third. She earns far less than $50K and still exceeds 50 hours a week. Whether your statement is true of airline mechanics or not, it reads as a statement of someone with many prejudices--and many misconceptions, about unions and union workers since it is a generalization. What I do know is if I couldn't work tomorrow, my wife's union has bought her only a subsistence wage--but at least it has bought her that. I'd much rather she have the union than not have it, and no one had better consider her lazy for expecting that.Care to clarify your remarks?-John

[rickalty 0]

"How much work do you do for free,Richard?"A lot. I am invariably in my office before ANY of the unionised day-shift people, and usually still there long after they've gone. When they hit trouble at 2am in the field, they call me. If someone has an accident, they call me. If a client is mad about a bodged job at 2am, they call me. My pay doesn't go up when my hours do, and ALL my union field staff earn more than I do, for less hours.If my clients hadn't caved in to their own unions and required me to use Union "workers" (And I use the term "worker" in it's loosest possible sense) at their facilites, I wouldn't.One of my clients, with a Longshoremans Union workforce, has a new computerized bulkloader that requires 1 person to operate. To have someone run it for breaks, meals, etc, he'd need to have 2 people on a shift. The ILWU's deal though - which is not even with the employer, but with the Port authority (who don't even employ any Longshoremen!) so the employer has no right to bargain seperately - requires a *10* man crew for every loading shift. Eight "workers" on every shift, who turn up and spend a full shift playing cards and pool in the Union Hall on full pay. Another client, with a PACE workforce, caught a night shift operator fast asleep IN A SLEEPING BAG on the floor of the tankfarm shack, relying on the audible alarms to wake him to do tank switches. The Union got his dismissal reversed because the Supervisor violated the Union agreement by using profanity when he caught him! A month later the same operator slept through an alarm and overflowed a tank.Those are just two examples of tens of thousands. While there are exceptions to ALL rules, it's generally accurate to say that Unionized employees are simply NOT as motivated or conscientious as non-Union ones, despite being far better paid. I'd far rather fly in a plane maintained by a non-Union mechanic who knows he'll be fired if he screws up than a Union one who knows he can coast along doing the minimum possible and rely on his Union to protect him.Richard

[KevinAu 441]

Nobody gets what they deserve...they only get what they negotiate. That is business. The fact that the ILWU has so much is because the management of the ports always caved in while the workers were completely united. Who was it that always caved in first? Was it APL? I forget. Only recently during this last time around did it seem like management grew a set with the lockout. It's not the worker's fault...that there is so much inefficiency there now, it's because of poor negotiations on the part of management. If you want to blame somebody for letting the unions put two guys on a job that only needs one, or prohibit you from using computer data systems, etc., look into the mirror. The unions and management will always tug, it's the ying and the yang, and only when there is balance of strength between the two sides, then can the industry be healthy. If one side is stronger than the other, then inequity results and the industry suffers.

[rickalty 0]

"The fact that the ILWU has so much is because the management of the ports always caved in while the workers were completely united."It's not a question of the "management of the ports caving in". The fact is that the port management has no interest in keeping labour costs down. The Longshoremen are hired and paid by Stevedoring companies, but the negotiating is done between the ILWU and a Port Authority run by a board of directors appointed by the local government. The ILWU gives money to their tame local politicians, the politicians appoint pro-labor directors to the Port Authority, the directors cheerfully agree huge payraises and cushy work terms for the ILWU, and the ILWU responds with bigger contributions to the politicians campaign chests. Why should the PA care how much the Sstevedors pay the Longshoremen? The PA bosses are government employees - if the Port suffers enough trade loss they might have to lay off some low-level cleaning and maintainance workers, but have you EVER heard of a government agency responding to a financial crises by cutting the number or salary of high-level civil servants?It's the same thing we see with agencies like BART - the wages keep spiarling upwards because the directors are appointed by left-wing politicians who rely on contributions from the public employee Unions to get re-elected, and there is NO-ONE looking out for the people who pay the bill, just like there's no-one looking out for the stevedores interests at the ports.Richard

[KevinAu 441]

The PMA's Board of Directors consists of bigwigs from the shipping companies and terminal companies that end up paying the costs of these longshoremen. The problem with the ports is that the management has no leverage against the unions. Management has no choice but to use these workers, and these workers can isolate and shut down the operations of any of the shipping companies. Inevitably, one of them APL, Matson, OOCL, whoever, ends up not able to stand the losses from the slowdown and forces the PMA to give in. The workers suffer nothing since they are still getting paid, either as "slow" work or if striking/lockedout, through the union. The union wins because they have unity, while the PMA loses because their members suffer separately. Politics certainly helped that union get to where they are today, but the maritime industry management are still the ones blowing it during the negotiations now by not being unified enough to help each other hold the line against the ILWU.So, I do agree with you that the longshoremen have way too much power. This inequity puts way too much money into the longshoremen's pockets and the maritime industry suffers as a result. The industry seems to have enough income to cover it for now, but I doubt that will last forever. When that is reached, the longshoremen will suffer as well.However, you are using an extreme example of unionism run amock to paint a broad stroke of laziness across all of the other people like airline pilots, mechanics, grocery workers, teachers, etc., who don't have that kind of power and actually do work for a living. And that is wrong.

[Guest FlyHeaven]

Yeah pilots done a good job!