Good question in theory, but in reality there is a few points here. - Not all new build freighters have lower deck cargo space. Various Cessna products, ATRs, most military based transports, etc. all are being built without. - Of the ones that do offer lower deck cargo, most are either based on or p...
Jump to postI've found them fine to operate on, never had an issue, though to be fair they've always been quite a bit bigger than I actually needed so there was lots of room to act if things started sliding. The POH for my airplane mentions grass runways, but the only mention I know of is in the takeoff and lan...
Jump to postLots of reasons to switch engines around... - Keep the airplane flying while an engine is out for repair or overhaul, sometimes operators will have a spare engine ready and if an engine in service needs to visit the repair shop that spare engine will be installed in its place, and then when that eng...
Jump to postNot sure about the big jets going paved runway to paved runway, but keeping the nose up is a very common technique when taxiing, taking off and landing on unpaved surfaces to keep the props/engines away from the gravel. Higher nose results in more ground clearance for the engines and also once the n...
Jump to postMany pressurized aircraft have, mostly, plug style doors. A plug door is basically in the closed position the door is bigger than the hole, so the cabin pressure will hold it firmly in place. Not all pressurized aircraft have that though, HS-748, ATR, and others. Usually in these types of doors ther...
Jump to postJust a quick add-on question. Depends on the airplane, but most airliners seem to follow a similar theme... HS748: The battery power and ground power are selected on and off from the cockpit, and they can each be selected on and off independently. The only catch was the battery and ground power swi...
Jump to postWe often power up most of the airplane's systems in the hangar using the ground power units (GPUs). They are the same units you'd find at the terminal, just mounted to a roll around cart instead of to a bridge. The only things we can't really power up on most aircraft are the engines and APU systems...
Jump to postIn Canada as far as I know when you bring an aircraft onto the Canadian register or change a current Canadian registration Transport Canada will assign you a registration, but there is an option to request a specific one and as long as it's not already taken there's not really any reason for them to...
Jump to posthttps://www.seatpack.net/ The airline here has been using these all the time in the 737s and ATRs with passengers on board for years. A 737 with 40 or 60 passengers on board and a dozen or so of these seat packs full of mail and such in the back few rows is pretty common on the northbound legs. The...
Jump to postThey are proposing to close the tower in Whitehorse as well. There's currently a number of local companies and groups that are pretty strongly and vocally trying to keep it open. Meetings, petitions, etc. all going around now. Up until the pandemic the traffic did justify it and was growing for a nu...
Jump to postIt likely depends on the airport. Slightly off topic but related, here we have bridges in the big city and every other airport in the Territory is just stairs only. With the bridges the airport prefers them to be used over ground boarding because it reduces the number of customers out on the ramp, a...
Jump to postPicture a $16,000 seat, and then multiply by 6 to put it in an airplane. $84K in wages and benefits per seat installation? I don't think so. UA spending 20 man-years (of its own, not contract labor) for a single 767 Polaris retrofit? From what I've seen of airplane parts it's pretty normal for a ne...
Jump to postFGITD wrote:Might explain why aviation can have so many family ties. Parents pass it on to their kids who get the memories of flying all over with mom or dad when they were little and loved it.
As long as he wasn't doing anything to bother other passengers and your time with him wasn't affecting the service of customers then I don't see anything wrong with it. At this point I am fully convinced that some people get up in the morning and purposely look for things to get offended by or upset...
Jump to postAround here the most common trainer aircraft is, by far, the 172. The local flight school here has one Seneca that they use for multi-engine training and the rest of their fleet is various models of 172. The school also has the option to bring your own airplane to do the lessons with, in which case ...
Jump to postLots of pilots have side gigs. From what I've read and seen there's nothing wrong with it, as long as #1 you still meet all the requirements for duty day limits, rest periods, etc. and #2 your second job is not in any way in competition with the first job. If you are a pilot at one airline and you s...
Jump to postAround here it depends on the airline and station as well. At our airline main bases with several airplanes coming and going we have dedicated ramp agents, cargo agents, cabin servicing agents, and passenger service agents, and at outstations where we often only have one or two flights pass through ...
Jump to postAlso would it be true to say there were never any factory new MD80s delivered in Canada ? I'm open to corrections of course, but the only C- registered MD-80s I can think of are the MD-83s that Jetsgo flew, which were all previously-enjoyed airframes. The only factory order I can name is the MD-88s...
Jump to postGood question, and I'm not sure the answer. My amateur opinion though is I don't think the typical human brain can really tell enough of a difference, considering the lack of being able to tell the difference without matching clues from other senses is what causes a lot of disorientation problems in...
Jump to postI rather asked about the financial/occupation demographics but thanks for the input. Of the ones I know some common themes are several aircraft mechanics and a few other airline employees doing some bush flying on their days off, a couple of small business owners using that to justify their toy, an...
Jump to postA few off the top of my head... Wardair MD-88: Ordered for their post-regulation expansion into domestic scheduled flying, but before any were delivered they were bought out by Canadian who cancelled the orders and instead standardized on the 737. Wardair F100: Same story. CP Air 767-200: Ordered in...
Jump to postFor what it's worth around here the demographics of GA pilots and owners is all over the place, most between early 30s and a bit past retirement. I've seen and welcome all types and ages, but I do feel like old white dudes is the biggest portion. Cost to get in is definitely one of the biggest obsta...
Jump to postBig jets always have both electric and pneumatic starters. The electric starters are routinely used to spin engines to ensure the cool down doesn't bind the rotors (CFM-56, all PW GTFs, going from memory). This has been a standard option for decades. Some engines only do this if you immediately shu...
Jump to postHaving read through quickly one big thing I didn't see was is that 400 km range the total drop dead range, or the actually useable range with a worthwhile payload, alternates, and reserves accounted for? Around here the vast majority of our regional air routes are indeed well under 500km, however th...
Jump to postSeveral 705 operators in Canada have a freighter or three in the fleet as well. Air North does mainly passenger and combi work but one of the HS-748s is a proper freighter. Similar stories at Wasaya, Air Creebec, Air Inuit, Calm Air, and likely a few others that I couldn't name off the top of my head.
Jump to postI've overwing fuelled airliners multiple times in the last 10 years. No fault of the aircraft, just happened to need a splash of fuel at airfields that didn't have single point fuel hookups available but did have JET-A in overwing form available. Never worked on the 747 but on the 748s and 737-100/2...
Jump to postInteresting that the slide didn't blow. The airline might have some explaining to do as well. Do 737s have slides under the wings? On the 737s the forward and aft doors are equipped with slides, but the overwing exits are not. There is a height specified in the regulations that determines whether n...
Jump to postAs a pilot myself with limited experience in busy airspace this sounds to me like it started out as an honest mistake, but when called on it the guy did handle it pretty poorly. In my experience the vast majority of people on the other side of the radio are actually super nice and willing to help, i...
Jump to postNolinor does indeed have a glass cockpit fitted to the -200C, pretty neat but I'm sure the cost was astronomical and you still have the issues of old airframes and thirsty engines. Cool to see as I quite liked the JT8Ds, but I'm surprised it happened. At the airline I worked on the 737-200C for they...
Jump to postThe Bae146/ Avro RJ have been used as combii, freighter, and gravel runway aircraft. https://www.regional-services.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Remote-Runway-Operations.pdf Interesting read, thanks! The RJ85 has been used on gravel with success by Summit, but I believe they run full pax only. I h...
Jump to postThe 737-200C is/was nearly a perfect aircraft for the job. 727s worked well too, but they're pretty much gone now, as the 737 can do most of the same for 1/3 cheaper. Sad to see the 737-200Cs fading, I grew up around them and worked on one for years so I will admit I have a bit of a soft spot for th...
Jump to postI believe it was the first 220 to visit here, nice to have something new to geek out to. I was also surprised they chose here and not Juneau to avoid the customs hassles. Whitehorse usually has non-stop flights from/to Frankfurt with 767s during the summer so facilities aren't an issue, but first I'...
Jump to postAround here you'll see that sort of thing or hear it on the radio every now and then. Usually it's some kind of survey work, sometimes photography work.
Jump to postI don't think such a 727 mod would have much better performance than the 737NG. Everywhere I've read, the '727 - while being a lot more fuel thirsty, would get from A to B a little (or a lot) faster then the NG. Thats what we want. Speed. Flight times have gone backwards over the decades. Something...
Jump to postI wonder if there is a civil aircraft regulation that can prohibit. to fly a classic B747 to steal foreigners? or it could be a DC-10 or L1011. Civil aircraft regulations are generally set by the government of each country, so they change depending where you go. Most countries line up their rules t...
Jump to postThe replies so far line up fairy well with how I understood the story as well. Wardair for many years operated primarily vacation type charters, for which the 747s were a good fit. In the mid to late 1980s they pushed hard to get into the scheduled airline market, but one of the challenges was their...
Jump to postYes I recall there are a couple of valves for different things on the JT8D-17s that I worked on that could be considered anti-ice vavles. Troubleshooting is fairly easy, you could get someone to run them while you watch as I believe most of them had some kind of an indicator on the valve you could s...
Jump to postThat certainly is a gravel kit. I looked after a 737 based on a gravel strip for a few summers, it was a great time. From what I remember the differences between it and the regular 737-200s in the fleet were (it was also a combi, but that's its own can of fish)... ⋅ The "ski" on ...
Jump to postDepends a lot on type of engine... Pistons: - A basic piston engine with a fixed pitch prop you'd typically be using RPM as a power setting and that's that, keep an eye on temperatures and things but RPM is your main setting. Throttle is your main engine control and directly affects RPM. - A step up...
Jump to postAll doable yes, but it a twin engine two-pilot 727 would likely do basically the same thing as an upgraded 737 would have done for the vast majority of operators. The only difference being the 737 already had a two-pilot cockpit and twin engine layout to start with, making the upgrade much easier. I...
Jump to postThe electric pump is only used as a back up to the engine driven pumps. Fairly sure both the electric and engine pumps are selected on during flight on the -3/4/5. On the -1/2 I know they are because the B system hydraulics is entirely electric pump powered. The system from the NG back through the ...
Jump to postHaving worked on both I can't say I've noticed. Could be the electric hydraulic pumps working harder maybe? I believe the flaps are normally B system hydraulics, and on the -1/2 the hydraulics are A system is powered by the two engine driven pumps in the cowlings and B system is powered by the two e...
Jump to postI'm a tall guy, but it is what it is so I deal with it. There is lots of ways to deal with it, 99% of the time you'll be uncomfortable for a couple hours but other than that you'll be fine. I am fully convinced that people out there are purposely looking for things to complain about and/or be offend...
Jump to postI'm a tall guy, but it is what it is so I deal with it. There is lots of ways to deal with it, 99% of the time you'll be uncomfortable for a couple hours but other than that you'll be fine. It's not necessarily my fault if I don't fit properly, but any reasonable adult will quickly realize it's not ...
Jump to postThanks. Though in fairness to the ATR, first article "...instead of following the correct checklist procedures", second article fair enough, third article "...may have caused the de-icing personnel to not be sufficiently attentive", and fourth article "This, in conjunction w...
Jump to postThe ATR still suffers from icing issues. Sorry to go off topic, but source? There are several operators in northern Canada who have been flying ATRs in icing conditions for years now and they're fine. There was issues with ice in the earlier days of ATR yes but they came out with a series of modifi...
Jump to postExcellent news to hear! Hoping all continues to go well and I can come down and see it some day.
Jump to postSeems clear as mud what pin was left in reading the article? Poor translation I suspect. There are two types of gear pins on the 737... "Gear pins" = there are three pins, one for each gear leg, that lock that gear leg in the down position. Often used by maintenance for a wide variety of t...
Jump to postI'll take any airline, just need the operating certifications and maintenance approvals really. Ground crews will be splendidly awesome and flight crews will look great. Ground minions will get free lunches, air crews will get shiny toys, and the maintenance department always has beer in the fridge ...
Jump to postI remember flying on these little Fokkers several times as a kid in the '90s when they were wearing Canadi>n Regional livery. It would be great to see one saved and on display. Please keep us updated, I'd love to come and see it some time.
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