Itsjustme From United States, joined Apr 2004, 2393 posts, RR: 19 Posted (4 years 3 months 3 weeks 1 day 3 hours ago) and read 8359 times:
I know that due to complaints of excessive noise from area residents, aircraft departing from SNA are required to make a rather steep take off and must scale back their engines shortly after departure. I'm not real comfortable when flying to begin with and I find these departures to be a bit unsettling. Do these requirements make SNA departures more cumbersome to you as pilots? Also, do these steep departures and scaling back of engines cause any increased stress on the aircraft? And finally, are these types of departures considered, well, "tricky", for lack of a better word? Please be candid as I have often wondered how commercial airline pilots feel about departing from SNA given what I would think are unique requirements for departing aircraft.
SlamClick From United States, joined Nov 2003, 9904 posts, RR: 70 Reply 1, posted (4 years 3 months 3 weeks 1 day 2 hours ago) and read 8270 times:
Have not been there in a year or more but I believe they are almost normal departures now.
As I recall, about ten years ago they were fairly high workload and I did not like them a bit.
We had a special performance page for Runway 19. We would enter the table at the temperature and our takeoff gross weight. It would give us a "cutback" power setting which was far lower than cruise power.
We would line up, go to full power, and hold the brakes. As the thrust began dragging the wheels we would release the brakes and begin the takeoff roll. At the cutback height (I think it was 800 AFE) the pilot not flying would pull the power back to the cutback setting while the pilot flying maintained the required speed - to the knot! He would also navigate the departure course very precisely and we had a map of the noise sensors on the ground to help with that.
Even if we did the power and airspeed perfectly if you overflew one of the sensors, which were only a couple hundred feet apart, you would "ring the bell" and it would record the time and your flight number and the decibels. If you could not maintain all your departures below the noise limit and the overall score of your departures low enough, the airport authority would either fine you thousands of dollars or take away "departures" from your company and give them to your competition. Not a very subtle form of blackmail. Oops! Sorry! "Blackmail" is illegal. What they were doing was legal, the ethics of it balanced by the greed of the airlines willing to go along with it.
At my company the engineering had been done pretty well. No matter what our load was and no matter what the temperature, we would cross the coastline at 2300' MSL, with the captain's eyebrows on the glareshield hanging on to the airspeed and ground track and the first officer's eyebrows on the glareshield and hands on the throttles keeping the power setting where it had to be.
The Orange County coastline was a VFR corridor with traffic as heavy as any place in the world and we wallowed through it at Cessna altitudes, with neither pilot having the time to glance outside the windows for more than a second or two.
But it was safe. It was legal, therefore it had to be safe. Right?
Confound their politics - Frustrate their knavish tricks
Itsjustme From United States, joined Apr 2004, 2393 posts, RR: 19 Reply 2, posted (4 years 3 months 3 weeks 1 day 1 hour ago) and read 8251 times:
SlamClick-
Thank you for your response. I flew out of SNA less than a month ago on an SWA flight and, as has been the case when I've departed SNA on Southwest in the past, the officer who did the pre-departure announcement from the flight deck advised us of the unique departure we as passengers were about to experience. I'm obviously not a pilot but the lingo he used was identical to what you just used ("We're going to go up to the line and go to full power while holding the brakes..."). He had warned about the steep departure as well and the first time I experienced it, I didn't know if I was headed for HOU or the moon.
SupraZachAir From Norway, joined Feb 2004, 523 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (4 years 3 months 3 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 8172 times:
SlamClick described it to a T. I just flew out of SNA on AS last Friday and we held the brakes, climbed steeply, the pulled back power until we were beyond the coastline and powered back up and departed normally from there. Gotta love hard nosed noise abatement Nazi's in O.C.
Aaron747 From Japan, joined Aug 2003, 2840 posts, RR: 10 Reply 4, posted (4 years 3 months 3 weeks 12 hours ago) and read 8143 times:
Don't tell me those flippin' Newport Beach NIMBYs bitch about the convenience of SNA when they have to get out of town. Oh that's right - there's a few G-V's based there...god I wish they'd all shut up.
"History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap" - Ronald Reagan
FSPilot747 From United States, joined Oct 1999, 3596 posts, RR: 15 Reply 5, posted (4 years 3 months 3 weeks 8 hours ago) and read 8122 times:
Those take-offs are fun, man, nothing to worry about. I'm on the ramp 6 days a week at SNA, and it's so incredible to watch up close! I've had the opportunity to talk to a few pilots who regularly fly out of there, and they all seem to enjoy it. Full power, hold the breaks, let go, pull back past 20 degrees on intial (if I remember correctly), then level off and bank.
Nothin' like the Musel Six departure on a 757 out of SNA..
SlamClick From United States, joined Nov 2003, 9904 posts, RR: 70 Reply 6, posted (4 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 hours ago) and read 8084 times:
FSPilot747 it is not the start of the takeoff that we don't like. Holding the brakes and spooling up is no big. It is the deep cutback at a few hundred feet in the air to a power setting that gives us only about 50 feet per minute rate of climb that is not right. It is wallowing out across the coastline through all the Wichita flak in a nose-high attitude with no maneuvering speed and neither pilot giving full attention to traffic spotting that is unsafe.
If there is, no, make that when there is a midair, the pilots will be blamed for "failure to see and avoid" the traffic. Make no mistake though, the real cause will be the spoiled thousandaires (real millionaires don't live there) who can't decided which they hate more - jet noise or driving to LAX, and it will be the politically motivated airport manager and it will be the greed of the airline management whose chief pilot's rubber-stamp approval of a stupid procedure that will be to blame. And it is coming.
As I said in my first post, I believe that it has gotten better. If I'm not mistaken we no longer cut back below climb power. It has always been hard to believe that a jet at any power setting only two thousand feet above your house could be quieter than one at seven or eight thousand feet and climb power on a normal profile.
Confound their politics - Frustrate their knavish tricks
AAR90 From United States, joined Jan 2000, 2728 posts, RR: 38 Reply 7, posted (4 years 3 months 3 weeks ago) and read 8067 times:
...and they all seem to enjoy it.
Pretty much, but it does get boring after a few years.
...pull back past 20 degrees on intial (if I remember correctly),
Not "initial" but rather when clear of runway. Too many folks read into the procedure the rotation goes straight to 20+ degrees deck angle and have ended up with a tailstrike!
...then level off and bank.
Never "level off" but rather reduce pitch to maintain initial takeoff climb speed. At runway (climb) limited max weights that should result in about 300fpm climb... very slow and very uncomfortable for pilots relatively new to SNA. Again, very boring for those based there.
Nothin' like the Musel Six departure on a 757 out of SNA..
Channel-1 in an MD90 will beat the pants off ANY 757 SNA departure. Even better is going off RWY-01... we were usually passing FL250 [if ATC could stay up with us] by the time we crossed back overhead the field [270 degree right turn 5 miles north].
If I'm not mistaken we no longer cut back below climb power.
That went away a very long time ago [10+ years].
It has always been hard to believe that a jet at any power setting only two thousand feet above your house could be quieter than one at seven or eight thousand feet and climb power on a normal profile.
Expect to see even more reduction in the required "cut-back" setting in the near future. While at recurrent training last week I was informed AA had received authorization to eliminate the cutback entirely for the 738s. Haven't seen it in writing yet, but multiple checkairmen were saying the same thing. Seems the 738 is already quiet enough that "someone" has been able to convince enough "someone elses" that the plane will be quieter at 2k-3k feet in climb power than 1k feet at reduced climb power. Heck, what's a few [30+] years anyway?
*NO CARRIER* -- A Naval Aviator's worst nightmare!
FSPilot747 From United States, joined Oct 1999, 3596 posts, RR: 15 Reply 8, posted (4 years 3 months 2 weeks 6 days 23 hours ago) and read 8052 times:
Thanks for the corrections there, I had always been under the impression that they still chopped power significantly and leveled off.
And I agree, I don't see how any plane at any power setting is quieter at 2K then at 6 or 7k at even full power. It's all the yuppies living in Newport beach who make the rules
AAR90 From United States, joined Jan 2000, 2728 posts, RR: 38 Reply 9, posted (4 years 3 months 2 weeks 6 days 19 hours ago) and read 8028 times:
I had always been under the impression that they still chopped power significantly and leveled off.
There is still a "significant" power reduction, but it is not supposed to be any lower than the lowest climb power setting that produces an approx. 500fpm climb.
And I agree, I don't see how any plane at any power setting is quieter at 2K then at 6 or 7k at even full power.
It is a very rare event when you could be Newport Beach at 6-7,000 feet due to the multitude of VFR traffic and established IFR traffic patterns in the area. Normally the current power reduction procedure will have the average airliner [757/A320/737] overhead the beach between 2,000 and ~4,500 feet. It's the low altitude (i.e. heavy weight) guy that's the concern. With no restrictions he's only going to be about twice as high [according to SNA studies]. So the proper comparison would be the ~2,000 AGL low power setting noise vs. the ~4,000 AGL normal power setting noise. For classic MD80 or older planes it was found that the noise sensed on the ground was less using the [now] established power reduction procedures. OTOH, newer planes [MD90, 737NG, 717, etc.] have much quieter engines so the noise reduction associated with altitude increases significantly outweighs the noise reduction associated with power reduction. The 752 fits somewhere inbetween and I'm not sure anybody is spending the $$$ to challenge the current assumptions.
*NO CARRIER* -- A Naval Aviator's worst nightmare!
LMP737 From United States, joined May 2002, 3494 posts, RR: 13 Reply 10, posted (4 years 3 months 2 weeks 6 days 18 hours ago) and read 8016 times:
Last year I flew out of SNA on a 737-800 where the pilot never bothered to throttle back. Guess he decided to thumb his nose at the powers that be and the well to do folks down in Newport Beach.
Itsjustme From United States, joined Apr 2004, 2393 posts, RR: 19 Reply 11, posted (4 years 3 months 2 weeks 6 days 16 hours ago) and read 7982 times:
It seems like SWA pilots are most diligent about abiding by the departure constraints. I've flown out of there about a dozen times over the past year and each time I've flown SWA (which has been 3 or 4 times), the officer who makes the pre-flight announcement over the PA has always made a point to brief us on the unique departure procedure we're about to experience. Other companies have either just done it without telling us or have executed a normal take off.
Silver1SWA From United States, joined Mar 2004, 2105 posts, RR: 7 Reply 13, posted (4 years 3 months 2 weeks 6 days 13 hours ago) and read 7946 times:
A friend of mine made a recent observation that he has noticed most of SWA's flights at SNA utilize the 737-700s. Could this be for noise reasons?
I flew out of SNA a couple times about 6 years ago and I really do not remember much about the departures, even though I'm fairly sure I knew about the "unusual" departures at the time. I'd like to experience it again...this time paying much more attention to it.
WakeTurbulence From United States, joined Apr 2004, 1015 posts, RR: 14 Reply 14, posted (4 years 3 months 2 weeks 6 days 11 hours ago) and read 7929 times:
The man who took the photo is one of the fine workers at ATC for SNA. I like many of his photos and hope one day to shoot SNA as well as he does. Thanks for all the good shots.
-Matt
SlamClick From United States, joined Nov 2003, 9904 posts, RR: 70 Reply 15, posted (4 years 3 months 2 weeks 6 days 1 hour ago) and read 7896 times:
It was at one time rumored that AirCal and PSA only operated the BAe-146 as a noise-reduction system for SNA. That the 146 departures lowered their overall noise signature there enabling them to operate more MD-80 flights on which they actually made money.
Probably an urban legend.
Confound their politics - Frustrate their knavish tricks
AAR90 From United States, joined Jan 2000, 2728 posts, RR: 38 Reply 16, posted (4 years 3 months 2 weeks 6 days ago) and read 7896 times:
Probably an urban legend.
Nope, that is a true story. The SNA noise slot program is very complex. In one of its more complex formulas an airline's total average noise per departure is used. If an airline can reduce that overall average that formula will permit a few "excess" noise departures. AA originally assigned two daily 757 departures to SJC in order to use that formula to slightly increase the max weights [for noise] on their morning MD80 departures to ORD. For a time AA was even using QQ's departures to reduce AA's noise average [they were using some of AA's SNA slots at the time]. A very complex situation that AA tracks on a daily basis.
*NO CARRIER* -- A Naval Aviator's worst nightmare!
Asteriskceo From United States, joined May 2004, 263 posts, RR: 0 Reply 17, posted (4 years 3 months 2 weeks 15 hours ago) and read 7766 times:
On my way to honolulu, after a quick B737 engine malfunction the captain told us about the noise abatement procedure and not to be afraid.
The only part I noticed was the lurching forward of the plane when they released the brakes, which was pretty cool. I didn't notice the plane being that steep and I never heard the engines cut back.
A320 automated? You have to press a button to descend. the 737 does it itself.
AAR90 From United States, joined Jan 2000, 2728 posts, RR: 38 Reply 18, posted (4 years 3 months 2 weeks 8 hours ago) and read 7733 times:
So the proper comparison would be the ~2,000 AGL low power setting noise vs. the ~4,000 AGL normal power setting noise.
Flew my first SNA flight since the new "non-cutback" procedures were put in place. Still too new to be in the latest changes to AA OpSpecs so the authorization is by way of a Flight Ops message attached to the flight plan. Don't recall the exact wording, but essentially it says the B738 has sufficient noise "buffer" to allow us of normal climb power settings. We were about 1,000 lbs below the runway maximum weight [for the conditions] and crossed the coastline at about 3,700'msl... a little less than twice the "normal" altitude for "Quiet Climb" departures.
*NO CARRIER* -- A Naval Aviator's worst nightmare!
Fanoftristars From United States, joined Jul 2000, 1460 posts, RR: 4 Reply 19, posted (4 years 3 months 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 7559 times:
My last flight to SNA was everything stated without the power cutback. This was on a DL MD-90. That baby is a rocket climing from 19R. What I thought was more interesting was the descent into SNA. Crossing the Santa Ana mountains and all the turns down to the runway, with a slam down full brake landing. That was fun! can't wait to return to SNA.
AAR90 From United States, joined Jan 2000, 2728 posts, RR: 38 Reply 20, posted (4 years 3 months 5 days 1 hour ago) and read 7513 times:
Crossing the Santa Ana mountains and all the turns down to the runway, with a slam down full brake landing.
Sounds like you got a pilot with little SNA experience. If you truly had "full brake landing" the plane probably would have stopped 2/3 of the way down the runway. Most new-to-SNA pilots think they need all sorts of drag (and turns) to descend from overhead Saddleback Mountain. Not true... but it takes a while to learn what you can/can not do as it can get pretty close to the performace capabilities of your airliner. Most new-to-SNA pilots also think they need "full autobrakes" (or at least one of the higher settings) because that's what most airline OpMan's "recommend." Frankly, I only set autobrakes to their minimum setting because AA requires it. With MD90 (no autobrakes) I seldom used any brakes at all... except to turn off at taxiway-E. Done properly, you should make only two turns, use no spoilers, use minimum/idle reverse thrust and minimum braking when landing at SNA
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the captain told us about the noise abatement procedure and not to be afraid.