Comments for AviationChatter.com

Comment on When Full Thrust Isn’t Enough – A Sobering Look at Delta Flight 191 by emyrj2005

emyrj2005 — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 02:57:23 +0000

I agree that the L1011 was one of the safest aircraft ever to fly,but what I will never understand about this incident is why the Captain did’nt call TOGA as soon as they first encountered the downdraft and not a few (fatally late?) minutes later!

Comment on Just Land the Darned Airplane by Reg

Reg — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:41:52 +0000

You watch the pilots bringing the plane down with little or no damage, because that’s the best case scenario. Only there’s been a lot of cases when that “little damage” turned out into a fireball, with the fuel tanks catching fire. Watch the videos where the pilots did their best, but everybody died. You can’t rely on “well, most of the youtube videos I’ve watched never killed anybody.” Watch the rest. Know the rest. Learn from it. It’s horrible, but you can’t fly without knowing the risks. You must fly knowing the risks. And getting ready for the unthinkable.

Comment on Just Land the Darned Airplane by Reg

Reg — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:27:10 +0000

If you’re not sure you can land safely, go around. Most landing accidents occur in bad weather. If you’re not sure you can do it, don’t do it. Go around. Go to the alternate. Most of the great stories about landing in hard conditions are because they forgot or even didn’t know the basic rules, and got lucky. Don’t be a hero, be a pilot. Just being a pilot is hero enough for most passengers, they don’t remember it much, but if tasked to it, they’ll reluctantly agree.

Comment on Don’t Trim the Airplane by Reg

Reg — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 21:40:27 +0000

I know where you’re coming from, at least in a 172. Hard turns by pulling slightly up, landing too. It’s in the seat of your pants, though flight instructors never like that approach. I like “sluggish” better than “twitchy”, because it allows for mistakes when you’re distracted.

Comment on Formation Flying With Airliners to Cut Fuel Costs by Reg

Reg — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 20:52:17 +0000

Mythbusters on Discovery tackled this, and they found that the effective distance for savings was really flying almost tip to tip, which was not only dangerous, but of course very, very hard. They used aerobatics planes, but it’s a harebrained idea. No way flying 2 miles apart will give any significant savings in fuel. And at distance it’s still very, very dangerous with large aircraft. We want to keep people safe and far apart, on different flight levels, not flying in formation for disaster.

Comment on Flying the Skycatcher: A Review of the Cessna 162 by Charles

Charles — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:49:23 +0000

When you say the 162 righted itself from a spin as the rudder passed back through neutral, do you mean that you let go of the rudder? Is the rudder spring loaded to neutral? Did you have to move the alierons to neutral?
Thanks
Charles

Comment on Stunning Nose Gear Collapse Caught on Video by Jason P

Jason P — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:35:41 +0000

Your comment is exactly correct. There was no stall, and this instructor should have had the student go around. Imagine this was a forced landing on a rural strip, he’d overshoot the entire runway based on this approach alone.

Comment on How VORs Really Work by M.S.Murugesan

M.S.Murugesan — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 09:37:40 +0000

I am a serious Flight Simulator pilot and I have really worked hard to learn all about the Nav Aids-VORs, NDBs Inter sections etc., given out in the respective programmes’ Learning Centers as a beginner in the FS world and was not satisfied at all just by learnig to fly the FS planes. I believed the the articles written about the VORs and their functioning and usefulness in those lessions.
This article of yours about the VORs and how they actually function is a wonderful nice thing. Now it is a very easy to understand and grasp the essence of VORs working,Sir. Now I feel that I am a truely better enlightned FS pilot than what I was before. ( I have taken the Private Pilot Certificate, Commercial Pilot Certificate, Instrument Flight Rating Certificate and the Airline Transport Pilot Certicate in a quite popular FS programme which I loved and still love a lt.) I am really lucky to have stumbled on this nice article of yours.
Thanks,
M.S.Murugesan.

Comment on Logbooks: what exactly are they for? by Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:24:22 +0000

Its common thinking about logbooks, more experienced pilots know whats the purpose of it, while younger don’t like to use them, and when you check theirs its always empty without pireps or anything.

Comment on Five great GA-friendly airports in the UK by Ignacio

Ignacio — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:41:54 +0000

Hi, I’m new to how things work for GA in Europe. I’ve heard a lot abput landing fees and that ir seems as if “Europe hates GA”. How much money are we talking about? Here in Argentina I can rent a good old Cessna 170 for about 100 US dollars, and an IFR equipped C-150 for about 120US dollars an hour. How much does it cost there? Do you get charged by every landing if you are doing touch and goes in your base for example?
Thanks
Ignacio