I was a C-130 Loadmaster back in the 80s. Believe it or not, we had a mass evacuation procedure where we would sit people in rows on the bare cargo compartment floor and run 5,000 lb cargo straps across the laps of each row and tie them down. I kid you not.

(Written on 05/05/2023)(Permalink)

What does a fighter "escort" have anything to do with a bomb threat? What are they going to do? I was on a flight once, American Airlines DC-10 that got a bomb threat and we made an emergency descent and diverted to an airport only 20 mins from the destination, evacuated via the slides, got interviewed and fingerprinted by the FBI, and put on a bus for the rest of the way. But no fighters. Of course that was in the USA and back in the 80's, but I still don't get it.

(Written on 04/01/2022)(Permalink)

Absolutely! (depending on the choices and decisions you've made). Nice reference though, cheers!

(Written on 02/25/2022)(Permalink)

Eh... we'll get over it. Don't believe everything you read, or these days, even see. Relax, have a drink, chill...

(Written on 02/25/2022)(Permalink)

I spent a few days in Catania, and there was always lava spilling out of Etna, but nothing like this. You just never know...

(Written on 02/25/2022)(Permalink)

@John Rogers: I was a controller at Houston Center 1991-2013, my primary traffic was Houston arrivals and departures but I also worked Austin and DFW traffic. Austin may have had many fewer weather delays from a passenger viewpoint, but we had to deal with the same weather systems, it was just a lack of volume that made it efficient. Increase the traffic and it'll be no different than any other large airport, and, the airspace is not structured to handle a large increase which is even worse. I also now live in the Austin area and (used to) fly out of AUS. We'll see what happens...

(Written on 03/19/2021)(Permalink)

I had 2,500 hours in the back of C-130s as a loadmaster. You're welcome. :-) It's really not that bad with hearing protection, and it's the hydraulic fluid that really stinks, I still love the smell of JP4 to this day. Plus you get to air it out when you open the doors at 20,000 feet where it's well below freezing to kick out some SF guys on a HALO drop.

(Written on 07/10/2020)(Permalink)

Depending on the runway in use, that visual approach into DCA is the most fun you can have in an airliner with your clothes on (from a passenger point of view anyway). I enjoyed that many times. As a pilot I wouldn't want to have to deal with all the red tape.

(Written on 06/13/2020)(Permalink)

I know I've flown on a Mad Dog as a passenger a few times, but all I remember is being in those back seats (I was a smoker) between the engines and if they weren't synced up, man was it noisy back there. I also remember a jump seat ride on an original DC-9 with American, and those pilots loved that airplane and they FLEW it. Autopilot off as soon as we were below 10,000. I also remember a ride on an Air Force C-9 (medevac) from Korea back to the Philippines and they had nice comfy business class type seats on that thing up front and it was so quiet and peaceful, I slept like a baby. I don't know why anyone, even an enthusiast, would want to sit in the back...

(Written on 06/12/2020)(Permalink)

Well there are a lot of safeguards in place. I'm not an expert, I'm only a private pilot but through my time on actual airline simulators, the time on the team designing procedures with experts, and time on my own flight simulator I got pretty familiar with programming an FMS and utilizing the autopilot. It's actually pretty hard to execute an incorrect flight plan which is why I still don't know how this crew managed to do it, but it does still happen. I know of one other incident that was similar, it wasn't my sector but the one next to me so I watched it all happen. It was pretty dicey. But only 2 incidents that I can recall over a 27 year ATC career so I'd say it's very rare.

(Written on 05/30/2020)(Permalink)