I found an old booklet on rules-of-thumb for the Boeing 737-200. One example: "The magic attitude for level flight in the traffic pattern for all flap settings in the B737-200: 4/5 degrees nose up. Booklet is full of these little tidbits. Are rules-of-thumb now obsolete given the state of high ...
Jump to postI was reading that all the old Boeing Stratoliner's [Boeing 307] movable surfaces had fabric over a metal structure and was wondering how hail damage would affect the airworthiness of the planes in flight? Was also wondering why the Stratoliner being one of the first all metal pressurized airliners ...
Jump to postWere the Convair 990 antishock bodies (Kuchemann carrots) and the leading edge glove added to the Boeing 720 and later to all 707's designed to do the same or similar things? Or did they each have separate purposes? If the Boeing 720 leading edge glove had been designed into the Convair 990 instead ...
Jump to postI've only seen videos with wing views of the DC-8. It looks like there are wing upper surface hinges. But not sure if the inner mechanism used jack screws. I know the DC-10 just used hydraulically operated under wing hinges housed in fairings. Does anyone know how the DC-8 flap system operated? Sorr...
Jump to postIn a course called "Aerodynamics for Poets" in college, my professor said. "We live at the bottom of an ocean of air. For aircraft and some large birds, flying is like swimming in the air. For very small insects like gnats, flying is almost like digging through the air or swimming in ...
Jump to postDo any propeller driven aircraft have slats [or leading edge flaps].? Anyone know? After flying on airliners with slats and leading edge flaps, I find it a bit disconcerting to fly on aircraft that fly approaches in a nose down attitude [like the DC-9-10 which seemed to me at the time to be diving n...
Jump to postWhen I watch flight deck videos of landings I always see the pilot flying the aircraft making constant movements of the yoke almost as though he or she is fighting strong forces. Is this because in the final approach phase, the flaps lower the wing loading ..... I mean, compared to cruise when the w...
Jump to postThanks everyone! The video is edited but it appears to me that this 737 is coming in very hot. Most of my flight experience as a passenger have been in 737-200s so I have a memory of how speed looks during landing and I come from a mile high airport where 100 degree temps are not unusual in the summ...
Jump to postI was watching this video of a Boeing 737-200 and when the reverser buckets are activated and reverse thrust applied, the flaps begin to extend beyond the approach flap setting. Have not seen this on any other video of a 737-200 landing. Is this something that the pilots do to increase drag after la...
Jump to postThanks again CrewBunk. I found a photo of an American Airlines 707 with those two lavatory windows. I think it is clear from that photo that they are little windows. Thanks again. I never noticed that in the 707 before.
What are the little dots on the fuselage forward of the forward door and above the general window line? Windows? Skylights? Something else?
I wonder if this is related to the comment of Captain Barry Schiff on the Boeing 720 [which is similar in cruciform shape to the 737 in some respects]: "some pilots feel that [the] 7120 is not quite as easy to handle as the larger 707: The shorter fuselage of the airplane makes it slightly less...
Jump to postIn the book "Airliner Color History: Boeing 737-100 and 200" by Michael Sharpe and Robbie Shaw there is a section called "A Pilot's View" written by captain Jack Brown. When describing the 737-200, he writes: " It was certainly well-balanced and presented no unpredictable ch...
Jump to postThe internet gives conflicting information on this. Do any experts out there or enthusiasts with books on the A380 know the answer to this? Thanks in advance for any useful information.
Jump to postWould the civil version of the C-5 aircraft have made a good wide body airliner? I realize that with a smaller wing sweep than the Boeing 747 it was probably limited in cruise speed.
Jump to postI remember an ad in a flying magazine about an airline that for a hefty fee allowed aviation enthusiasts to have 30 minutes in a simulator like the one in the video. I don't remember which airline it was now but it was in Denver if I recall. If I had the money I would have tried it out.
Jump to postThe concept transport / airliner VLST design had a modified V type of tail in place of a traditional cruiciform or high T-tail. Was wondering about how failsafe such a tail design is or could be or if v-tails are appropriate for possible airplanes capable of transporting upward of 1000 passengers? A...
Jump to postThanks to you all for the responses. Do you think a double hinged flap would simply be a duplicated lower hinge or do you think perhaps there would be an upper and lower hinge? Is there an upper hinge on the flaps of the Douglas DC-8? Sorry that I am not very smart abut such things.
Jump to postIn Terry Waddington's book on the DC-10, page 106, he describes a DC-10-60 series of planes pitched to the airlines but never developed. He writes: "But the biggest change was to the flap system. Its small vaned version of the standard DC-10 was [to be] replaced by a double-hinged flap that inc...
Jump to postI once flew a scheduled flight on TWA from St. Louis Lambert to NY JFK and back. Was wondering if TWA used the 747 to serve any other city pairs or whether it ever did charter flights either with its 747 or other types. Thanks.
Jump to postI'm a total newbie regarding flight simulator stuff but I like to watch full flight window view videos of flight because the sound of the flights relaxes me especially if it is done without human voice sound. I work on a suicide hotline which is very stressful. Wondering whether it is possible to ge...
Jump to postI've been watched old videos of the Boeing Stratoliner and Stratocruiser and the Lockheed Constellation and progeny as well as one on the DC-7C model. Some were pressurized more or less and had some higher altitude capabilities. Engine out capabilities were not that great though. Some of those huge ...
Jump to postSomeone told me he thought flap settings were based on 10 knots above stall for various weights and configurations. Is that incorrect?
Jump to postSince the Boeing 747-400D, like the 747SR was developed exclusively for Japanese carriers, I would imagine that the only Flight and Operations manuals in existence are in Japanese. There is some data available for the type on the Boeing website, but I was wondering whether the D model performed bett...
Jump to postPeople fooling around with photoshop software have produced imaginary extended upper deck 747 photos to show how one might look compared to the A-380. I am thinking that these fanciful photos would not actually be what such an aircraft would look like. I am guessing that there would be changes to th...
Jump to postThe video being circulated which is alleged to be of the aircraft involved in the dive . . . what is the backstory there? Did the videographer hear some kind of noise which caused him or her to look in that direction and capture what he or she videographed? Did someone just happen to be looking up i...
Jump to postWatching a lot of airliner flight deck videos, I've noticed that there is some difference in the call-outs. On some videos the pilot flying calls out the final flap setting "Flaps X!" while on others the pilot might say "Full Flaps!" Or to cite another example, some pilots flying...
Jump to postPlease correct me if I am wrong here, but it is my understanding that on some aircraft like the 727, 737 and others that lowering the flap lever to the first detent causes movement of both some LEDs and some TEFs. On the 747, I believe, [perhaps wrongly] that the initial flap detent brings out only ...
Jump to postI came across this quote* from an MD-11 pilot and was wondering whether it is accurate of not. "And the landing speeds [of the MD-11] are 20-30 miles per hour faster (than the MD10s), so things happen faster." David Noland. "What's wrong with the MD-11 airplane." Popular Mechanic...
Jump to postI was watching a flight tracking site on the internet and saw aircraft making a very wide arc to line up with a runway at SEA. It seemed like the airliners were tracking northerly up the Puget Sound and then making a very slow wide turn to line up with the to-the-south active runway. Was wondering w...
Jump to postNot sure there are any former Lockheed L-1011 Tristar pilots still around on these Forums so I am wondering if any of you pilots or other aviation professionals flew on that aircraft and have any personal memories of it?
Jump to postOn airliner types using off-center "joysticks", are pilots who are flying the plane a bit uncomfortable operating the side stick with their non-dominant hand? I was thinking that if the airline Captain is always seated in the left hand seat on such aircraft and most people in the world are...
Jump to postA retired TWA captain told me that at heavy weights he would have to level off at 1500 feet above field level in order to build up speed for flap retraction or sometimes just barely climb. I think he flew 747-100s. Just wondering if now a days jetliners have trouble both climbing and building up spe...
Jump to postI only count 4 flap movements on this 747-400 video. But the 747 has 6 settings. How to explain? 5-10-20-25? Can the 747 land with Flaps 25? What happened to Flaps 1? Any 747 skippers out there?
https://youtu.be/eyz93nSwdaI
Is that because of 9/11?
Jump to postDo commercial aircraft ever land on RW 13 at LaGuardia? If not, is it because it would mean flying over the buildings on Manhattan? On FlightAware I often see landing commercial flight follow the Hudson River and then it seems like they turn around the I-95 bridge and finally turn to a final approac...
Jump to postSeveral people have told me that the L-1011 was technologically superior to the DC-10. If that is true, was initial purchase price the main reason for less sales success of the Tristar compared to the Douglas product? I've also heard that production delays related to the Rolls Royce engines were als...
Jump to postI was looking at a table of Maximum Flap Extended Speeds for the Boeing 727. I am assuming one doesn't lower them right on these speeds. Is there a rule-of-thumb on what speed to lower them? Ten knows below these speeds of some other rule? Flaps 2 - 245 KIAS Flaps 5 - 230 KIAS Flaps 15 - 205 KIAS Fl...
Jump to postI know that Douglas subcontracted the manufacture of the fuselage barrel sections to Convair [GD] including the sections with the ill-fated cargo doors. But was the door and latching system a Douglas design or was the design also subcontracted? I seem to recall that after tragic accidents involving ...
Jump to postThank you all for such wonderful information. I am most appreciative of your efforts!
Jump to postSome aircraft are modified after flight testing to attempt or succeed at meeting customer performance guarantees or expectations. Don't know much about the history of Airbus and Boeing airliners, but McDonnell Douglas introduced PIPs to remedy or attempt to remedy performance shortcomings in the DC-...
Jump to postThanks for all that information! Am still a bit in the dark about whether the 707 had a single or dual rudders, a single or dual rudder actuators . . . if anyone can help there. It seems that the rudder on the 707 was aerodynamically balanced and actuated by means of cable-controlled tabs and incorp...
Jump to postThanks for all that information! Am still a bit in the dark about whether the 707 had a single or dual rudders, a single or dual rudder actuators . . . if anyone can help there. It seems that the rudder on the 707 was aerodynamically balanced and actuated by means of cable-controlled tabs and incorp...
Jump to postLooking at cutaway drawings of the Boeing 707, it appears that this aircraft did not have split rudders like the Boeing 727 and that it had a single rudder actuator system. Of course cutaway drawings don't show everything. Since I don't have detailed schematics of the Boeing 707 and its civil and mi...
Jump to postI know that some jetliners perform packs-off or one-pack off takeoffs in certain circumstances, but do any perform packs-off landings? I would think that since LGW is much lower than TGW, that even if go-around thrust were required that there would be no need to not use the packs but perhaps I am as...
Jump to postThat is my memory too of flights during the 70s.
Jump to postSome manuals I have seen show take-off and initial approach charts beginning with Flaps 20 [Flaps 22 on the 880M]. Does that mean that Flaps 10 was not used or rarely used? The same charts show Flaps 20 to Flaps Up after takeoff without a stop at Flaps 10. Anyone know? Thanks for any information.
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