[LuganoPirate]

On short haul I’m comfortable with 2 pilots, even if one is seconded as an FA as on some smaller aircraft. Long haul I can cope with 2 but am happier when I know there’s a third pilot even if he’s in a bed resting. You would never see me set foot on a pilotless plane however. I’m in favour of tech but even the most rigorously tested software still goes wrong which at my desk and a height of 1 meter I can cope with. But at 35,000ft! No, I’d prefer some real highly trained people capable of getting the plane out of its spot of bother,

And that to me is the crux of the matter. Highly trained and experienced. Unless a pilot has been fortunate to have been accepted and trained by an airline, chances are he has had to fund his own training at considerable cost. Even when trained by an airline he will owe the airline an amount toward his training which is paid off from his salary. We are not talking about a bus driver but a person who has to understand every aspect of flight, weather, aircraft construction, load factors, stresses on the aircraft, navigation and so on while working unsocial hours thousands of miles from home.

To my mind this is not someone who should be paid less than a London Undreground train driver.

So for me, if I have to pay a few pounds more on my ticket for a well paid, contented pilot who will get me from A to B safely and is there to get me out of trouble when things go wrong, then I’m equally happy to stump up for it!

[Bucksnet]

Pilots should be well paid and shouldn’t have to take second jobs, indeed they should be banned from doing so.

A lot of pilots in the US are on food stamps FFS!

[canucklad]

Totally agree with you LP…..

I will add that I wouldn’t be happy jumping on and off the tube, knowing that their drivers were being forced to work longer than the brain can handle..

Bucksnet…..I’m led to believe that the pitot tubes give crew. a electronic feeling of consistent (in the moment) spacial awareness! …In the case of AF they were in a storm and flying at night , thus they lost their sense of Horizonal flight !

[Bucksnet]

The GPS would show the altitude in feet, which would clearly be decreasing if the plane was descending. Also the artificial horizon, a mechanical device completely independent from all electrical systems, would show the plane’s vertical heading.

[MartynSinclair]

I would still love to be a tube driver….. 🙂

[Bucksnet]

Pilots working up to 16 hours at a time and not getting lunch breaks: –

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/10280316/Airline-pilot-secrets.html

“That’s many more hours than a truck driver.”

[FrDougal]

Unfortunately I find it difficult to have sympathy for BALPA pilots in this action. Simply because at airlines like BA pilots operate a bid system where they bid for their trips and most do so in a manner to maximise their time off. So for example they will do 2 weeks of nonstop bidding in order to achieve 2 weeks off. It is very normal to find pilots who have just flown in from LA the previous afternoon jet off to Hong Kong and do similar crazy back to back duties and this is by choice!

One piece of paperwork on the matter that I read it suggested pilots would only need to work a further 6 hours a week to maximise the 1000hour ruling. But what many pilots seem to lack understanding in is that they are still protected by there SCHEME flight time limitations meaning if they are following it to the book they should not find themselves in a position to be exhausted before a trip, they may just need to tame it down a bit in the cheap dive bars down route!

[Bucksnet]

3 pilots on the first 787 flight to Toronto: –

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=571332742922925&set=a.571292799593586.1073741869.350989731623895&type=3&theater

I don’t know why they need 3 on such a short route though?

[LuganoPirate]

Could one have been a check pilot? Or maybe one was receiving additional training for the necessary hours on type?

I don’t think it was anything sinister 😉

[canucklad]

Could the 3rd one be fire fighter trained…..and yes i know sarcasm and wit….: )

[esselle]

Goodness me.

Not long ago, 4 up was the norm on long-haul (8-10 hours plus).

The auto technology has not really changed much since WW2, in terms of keeping the machine in the air, but the need to respond to fails has not either.

These changes do not fill me with confidence.

[BigDog.]

FrDougal – 02/09/2013 12:30 GMT
+1

esselle – 02/09/2013 20:58 GMT

There are still four on the longer ones – Narita, Rio, Singapore etc.

[TheRealSlimShady]

Hi BigDog,

Sorry for the late reply.

Right, I believe 447 was a tragedy due to bad CRM (Crew resource management) between the two crew flying for the most part. When the most experienced member of the crew returned from a rest break the aircraft was already in a deep stall. I’m sure that his fresh view on the situation gave him the know how to diagnose the situation (as heard in the black boxes recordings), but by then it seemed to late to recover the aircraft. I have this impression from the sources of information that I have access too. Of course all accidents are caused by a sequence of events, so there are indeed many other factors involved. No we would not need 4-5+ crew members. The extremely high number of safe flights is due to great CRM between flight crew members working together on a daily basis.

In regards to how rigorous my research is, it is to a good standard thank you. I have achieved a 2:1 so far in my studies. I left out a lot of detail in my forum posts because it’s a forum, not a formal scientific publication……

As for your pilot friend who don’t find flying airliners as good as Island hopping. Well that’s a given, if you were a pilot you would understand. I’ll use the analogy of a cab driver who drives 7 seater cars to and from airports all day. It’s a given that they would find driving say a sports vehicle through a desert a lot more fun….

In regards to British Aerospace Engineering and the ASTRAEA project, it sounds promising and new technology could certainly change things in the flight deck in the future. As for eliminating the need of pilots in the future I feel that is incredible ambitious, even if you could operate a pilotless airliner, try getting passengers to sit on board? A few drone related incidents later (which will be inevitable) and the public will by crying out for pilots again.

Performance management is very rigorous in commercial aviation. Pilots must pass a class 1 medical every year and biannual simulator checks. In these simulator checks pilot are presented with difficult and obscure situations, they’re not a case of just flying a routine sector.

As for my choice of degree, it works very well for me and I love the subject. An aeronautics degree wouldn’t leave me any better at my prospective career than a physics degree. I picked what I enjoyed the most.

Thanks for reading.

[BigDog.]

BALPA continue to peddle scaremongering stories in an attempt to manipulate public support and avoid the EU changing the pilot cover numbers on a few flights and upping the flying hours from 900 to 1000 total per year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/10335427/Airline-pilots-asleep-in-the-cockpit-during-long-haul-flight.html

What this story fails to mention is the permitted controlled rest and that there are a variety of alarms which will go off if there has been no input into the controls for over 10? minutes.

Once the autopilot kicks in things become a tad tedious, pilots being asleep is not new, just newsworthy when BALPA wants to protect the archaic terms and conditions of its union members.

As to the hours – 1000 across say 45 work weeks a year would equal 22 hours per week. Add on the checks etc and I fail to see why with reasonable scheduling that a pilot could be required to fit his full weeks work into a day even allowing for delays…. or is it that pilots actually prefer/opt to cram in as much work as possible in order to have longer breaks and commute to the US or eastern med?

… The most recommended comment from the article begins with… As an airline pilot of forty years experience, let me assure the public that this is nothing new.

[BA4ever]

“British pilots have been a very much overpaid protected species, isn’t it about time they joined the real world of supply and demand”
NO!!!
One of the reasons why I choose BA is that I trust the pilots. I know that they work less than pilots of other airlines and that makes me feel very, very, very good.
Additionally, there is a reason why there is a third pilot and that is not so that all 3 of them work less and sleep more but it is in case something happens to one of them.
If their salaries and pensions are sky high, they should consider reducing them. But reducing the number of the pilots or increasing the numbers of flying is CRAZY and I really hope that it won’t happen, ever.

[Author]

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