# The Great Ongoing Aviation Thread (general and other) (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 23, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499 "2011-10-23T02:17:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 144
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2022, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2863 "2022-08-20T03:22:24Z")
> [@Tride](#): > > … > @LSLGuy talked about tons of fuel on a taxi > … Not quite sure where that came from. In a 737 we figure about 1200# per _hour_ to taxi. And we consider 30 minutes to be a long, boring, inefficient taxi, and an hour would be excruciating for all aboard. Though most exceed 15 minutes. For a sense of scale, I just checked and a 777 burns about 4,000# per hour taxiing. I don’t have easy access to regional jet taxi burns, but I’d bet 600#/hr is about right. @Llama_Llogophile ought to have a decent recollection of those numbers. FYI … I have no opinion on private jets. Almost everything associated with the top 0.1% of humanity (or even top 1% of humanity which every $100K/yr US salary slave certainly is) has/have no place in an equal society. But that conclusion pretty well assumes that an economically equal society is in fact some kind of obvious morally or practically desirable goal. In terms of total fuel consumption, PJs’ collective consumption are a rounding error on the airlines’ collective consumption. And their collective passenger counts, and passenger miles, are likewise a mere rounding error. Whether we like it or not, it’s what the bulk of humanity does that determines our future course. Not what our fatcats do. See also > [@What WOULD a "sustainable existence" actually look like for the average person? Is it feasible?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-a-sustainable-existence-actually-look-like-for-the-average-person-is-it-feasible/969868/): > > So all the discussion about droughts and water shortages across the world has rekindled discussion of what it would take to beat climate change and head off its related issues, including dwindling common resources. I’ve seen it said more than once that most people would not be willing to accept the change in lifestyle and consumption habits it would take to accomplish this. But it struck me that one of the reasons is that it’s not very common knowledge what it would look like. I’ve seen all sort… ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2022, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2864 "2022-08-20T03:28:48Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > There’s fatigue and then there’s boredom. Imagine sitting in a seat while the plane is flying itself at night. You’re staring into nothing looking at gauges that show the plane is flying normally without much change. Generally pilots are cued to their call sign and will snap out of a lulled state. Quite true. But lulled and sleeping are two different things. And for serious long haul, where boredom is at its worst, the radio simply doesn’t call these days. ATC out there is done mostly over data link, and not much happens on it for hours on end. No more sector frequency changes every 15 minutes. Certainly there’s a bunch of company-mandated cockpit busywork, mostly intended to foster paying attention versus zoning out or falling asleep. But it’s 99% your own self-discipline that keeps eyes open and busywork done, not blown off. It is on this rock that I predict any efforts at single pilot jet-driving will founder. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2022, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2865 "2022-08-20T03:39:09Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > And for serious long haul, where boredom is at its worst, the radio simply doesn’t call these days. ATC out there is done mostly over data link, and not much happens on it for hours on end. I didn’t know that. I’d be using the timer on my phone as a backup. Heck I use that now at work if someone asks me to call them back for information. I always wondered if company assigned busywork kept pilots busy. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2022, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2866 "2022-08-20T04:18:54Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Off top of my head I’d expect the lateral and vertical nav functions of the FMS system to go invalid at the end of the planned route = the target runway, but I’d expect the autopilot / flight director system to simply remain functioning in a heading or track hold mode laterally and altitude hold mode vertically after the nav solution ended. This is what I was thinking. The A320 will go to basic modes, Heading and Altitude Hold, and keep flying along on autopilot. There is a “triple click” attention getter when this happens. Maybe the Boeing equivalent is what woke these guys up. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > We in the US industry can generally have aircraft-in-motion at most 8 hours per shift, but under favorable circumstances it can be 9 hours. As a separate matter we can be continuously at work planned for up to 14 hours in a shift that can be extended to 16 hours. Those are the base cases. It gets tax-code complicated after that, but let’s just run with these two rules: 8 hours in motion during a maximum 14 hours on-shift. Which is a good example of the wide variety in flight and duty limits around the world. In New Zealand we are flying to our contract rules, I’m not even sure what the CAA rules are but they’re less conservative than our employment contract. We can fly 8 hours but can only be on duty for 11, (extendable to 13 to complete the duty). Our days are generally a lot tighter than @LSLGuy’s, a four sector day would typically have two 35 minute turn-arounds and a 1:10 turn-around as a “meal break”. Total duty somewhere between 7 and 10 hours depending on what the flights were. Benefits of living in a small country. There’s not a lot of science behind flight and duty limits. They tend to be a mix of industrial relations, history, commercial necessity, with a bit of science shoehorned in somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2022, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2867 "2022-08-20T04:54:12Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > My shortest flight in a jet: 6 minutes, from Thermal in Palm Springs to Bermuda Dunes (a funky little private strip). If you are interested here is the world’s shortest commercial flight (about 1.7 miles which is about 90 seconds flight time). It’s not a jet but still…(I think it is a turbo-prop so jet-ish): [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/dzYP01CPC6E/maxresdefault.jpg "I took the world's shortest flight. It was underwhelming.") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzYP01CPC6E) ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2022, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2868 "2022-08-20T04:57:25Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > In New Zealand we are flying to our contract rules, I’m not even sure what the CAA rules are but they’re less conservative than our employment contract. If you fly to another country don’t you need to abide by the destination country’s rules (if they are more stringent then your home country)? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2022, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2869 "2022-08-20T05:12:46Z")
Scheduling rules aren’t affected in that way. Rules of the air are. When I fly to Australia there are different rules that apply for what I can and can’t do with the aircraft. Rostering is different though, you are generally bound by the rules of the country where the aircraft is registered. This leads to situations where an Australian company will operate Australian registered aircraft domestically in New Zealand in accordance with the less restrictive Australian scheduling rules (and of course paying the not-as-attractive New Zealand wages). This has limits though, I believe one Australian company found that they had to provide their New Zealand based crews meal breaks in accordance with New Zealand labour law after the crews kicked up a stink. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2022, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2870 "2022-08-20T11:13:08Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > As to the Minneapolis folks mentioned by @JKellyMap, those were US major airline pilots, but not asleep. Just lost in playing with their then-shiny new company tablets and company software. So they claimed. I’ve heard good reasoning that the pilots more likely were asleep (for one thing, helps explain why they erased the CRV). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2022, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2871 "2022-08-20T14:01:35Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > > [@LSLGuy](#): > > > > Off top of my head I’d expect the lateral and vertical nav functions of the FMS system to go invalid at the end of the planned route = the target runway, but I’d expect the autopilot / flight director system to simply remain functioning in a heading or track hold mode laterally and altitude hold mode vertically after the nav solution ended. > > This is what I was thinking. The A320 will go to basic modes, Heading and Altitude Hold, and keep flying along on autopilot. There is a “triple click” attention getter when this happens. Maybe the Boeing equivalent is what woke these guys up. I had time to make the experiments on my tablet trainer app this morning. As I expected when it cruised past the end of the route, it reverted to altitude hold and roll hold with no disconnects or audible alerts. The FMS itself gave various protestations as we went along, but on 737s (and other Boeings IME) that’s limited to a message in the FMS scratchpad and an idiot light on the instrument panel. No noises. If I programmed in an arrival connected directly to an approach, it flew the approach, then followed the missed approach routing and entered the missed approach holding pattern where it would have circled until fuel ran out. It did not fly the approach or holding very well at 400+ knots cruise groundspeed, but it gave it a darn good try. 😉 > [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > There’s not a lot of science behind flight and duty limits. They tend to be a mix of industrial relations, history, commercial necessity, with a bit of science shoehorned in somewhere. Very well said. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2872 "2022-08-23T03:35:12Z")
This guy just flew a Cessna 172S, N490NW, from Merced, CA to… Honolulu. > **[N490NW Flight Tracking and History 20-Aug-2022 (KMCE-PHNL) - FlightAware](https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/N490NW/history/20220820/1245Z/KMCE/PHNL)** > > Flight status, tracking, and historical data for N490NW 20-Aug-2022 (KMCE-PHNL) including scheduled, estimated, and actual departure and arrival times. 18 hour flight. It had 160 gallons of fuel onboard–stock is 53. Some more details [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UOn-s8WOuU). Apparently, engine oiling was also an issue. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2873 "2022-08-23T04:24:51Z")
I forgot to mention the reason: it was a ferry flight. That is, the whole goal was to get the plane itself delivered to the island. As such, it had a one-time exemption from the FAA for flying overweight, and they had to wait for favorable winds to make it happen at all. The pilot wore a “poopy suit” (you can guess what that means). Not an easy thing to pull off, but better than cutting the aircraft into pieces, stuffing them into shipping containers, and reassembling on the other side. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2874 "2022-08-23T04:36:33Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Not an easy thing to pull off, but better than cutting the aircraft into pieces, stuffing them into shipping containers, and reassembling on the other side. Unless you land short. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2875 "2022-08-23T17:01:52Z")
[Red Bull ‘Plane Swap’ investigation closed - AOPA](https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2022/august/15/red-bull-plane-swap-investigation-closed) > The NTSB made official on August 12 the unsurprising conclusion that the pilot’s planned departure from an aircraft in a vertical dive led to a stall and spin that “substantially damaged” the unoccupied Cessna 182 during a livestream event sponsored by Red Bull and broadcast by Hulu on April 24. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2876 "2022-08-24T14:08:00Z")
These happen routinely. There are companies that specialize in flying light planes across the oceans. As well, if someone did want to move it by disassembly, the wings unbolt from the fuselage pretty easily. No cutting required. Easier on Cessna-style aircraft where the landing gear is attached to the fuselage than on Piper-style aircraft where the gear is attached to the wings and the fuselage needs to be put on a wheeled cradle to load into a container. There’s a bunch of expense associate with disassembly and reassembly and the careful realignment of all the flying surfaces and reconnection of fuel and electrical connections. All of which expense can be avoided by ferrying it intact. At the offsetting expense of temporary mods for extra in-cabin fuel tanks, and a professional service to fly it for you. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2877 "2022-08-24T23:03:43Z")
My dad knew the owner of a company that did floatplane conversions, and I remember him doing a few delivery flights within North America. He told me the company had to ferry a light twin to Australia. I think the route went through Adak, Alaska, near the end of the Aleutian Islands, but I can’t remember what the next stop was. You go to some out-of-the-way places when you have to. ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2022, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2878 "2022-08-25T18:03:58Z")
Many years ago when I was still working as a narcotics detective we got a call about a suspicious plane that had just landed at the the local airport. On arrival (late night) I saw a 172 or similar on the tarmac. The N number had been spray painted over in white and a new number spray painted over that. It was sloppy work. The pilot was a bit frustrated but otherwise cooperative. There was a large barrel in the passenger compartment with hoses coming out of it. He explained that he was ferrying the plane to Europe via Iceland or something and had paperwork to back up his claim. He allowed us to search everything and was on his way. Its takes a special kind of crazy to fly over an ocean alone in a plane with a single piston engine. I wonder what they get paid for that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2022, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2879 "2022-08-25T18:21:10Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Anyway, let’s say I’m a charter pilot for that third party company. I take the plane on a day you, Ms. Swift, have a a few days off. It happens to be at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, and someone has chartered it for a flight out of White Plains, NY. So I fly it empty to White Plains (call it a 20-minute hop), then take on passengers and fly them to, say, West Palm Beach. They leave, and it turns out my passengers for the following day are going from Boca Raton to Chicago Midway. So either that day, or the following morning, I have to move the plane empty to Boca. Related to this, I have heard that when people travel to the Silicon Valley area on private jets, it’s fairly common for the plane to land in San Jose to drop off the passengers, and then fly over to Sacramento-Mather, where the parking fees are much cheaper, until the plane is needed again. Even one percenters don’t want to spend more than necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2022, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2880 "2022-08-25T20:40:16Z")
“Take care of the pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves.” ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2881 "2022-08-26T05:28:23Z")
A “poopy suit” is a common nickname for [survival suits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_suit), worn in case of ditching in the ocean. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2022, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/2882 "2022-08-26T09:52:37Z")
I guessed _that_ much, but what I wonder is if the poopiness comes from the smell of wearing a waterproof suit for 18 hours or if anyone ever actually drops a deuce in there. I presume that a diaper is worn, at least–well, I guess it depends. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499.md?page=143) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499.md?page=145)