I have a few photos of the flight deck that I pulled out of the archives, nothing that jumps out at me that makes me say “oooh, that must be an SP!” Four of everything engine related, engineers panel looks like the same as a 727 had, just with four of each thing instead of three. Overhead looks the same, autopilot controls on the brow are the same. Small computer displays near the pilot and first officer knee areas on the outboard sides, no idea what those are (steam gauges and the standard Boeing backlit buttons for everything otherwise). I’m sure the POH has different numbers, but that wasn’t on the flight deck.
Its not like I have any great length of time on “regular” 747 flight decks, I think I’ve maybe been in two, for like 5 minutes each, so I dont have a good basis of comparison.
I do see the tail was N147UA, so apparently an old United plane. The nameplate on the dash also has “AF-GM” below the tail number, perhaps someone knows what that means.
The “AF-GM” is the airplane’s individual SELCAL (“Selective Calling”) identification code. This is not a good wiki, but I’ll cite it anyhow:
The short version is long range HF radios can’t practically have a squelch circuit. So absent any other mechanism, crews would have to listen to static continuously for hours on end. That would suck. SELCAL is a work-around for that.
Long Version of SELCAL ...
SELCAL was a 1950s tech solution where each airplane was assigned a 4-letter code and the ground station could play tones rather like a touchtone phone or more like the radio alert noise on the old Emergency! TV show. So if you were listening you’d hear BEEEP-BOOOP-HOONK-BLOORP and if the right tones were played in the right order a noisemaker triggered in that one airplane’s cockpit to tell that one crew to turn up the HF radio and answer the call. Everybody else had their volume off and never heard a thing. Very restful.
Of course when you first make contact with whatever agency on that kind of radio, you need to notify them that you’ll be using SELCAL and what your code is. The ritual then has them test it while you’re still actively listening. If it works (IOW you hear some tones then your call alarm immediately triggers), great, you can turn off the audio untl the next frequency change 3 or 4 hours from now. If it doesn’t, well, it’s gonna be a long, tiring shift listening to the irritating “music” of the ionosphere.
This system is still used today all over the oceans and remote areas of the world. I used it myself just on Tuesday going from JFK down to a far Caribbean island then back. We’re way too far offshore from the USA for conventional VHF radios, and totally out of radar contact as well. So we use HF just like great-grandad did in 1930, and SELCAL just like grand-dad did in the 1950s.
Unlike Grand-dad however we’re not having the navigator shoot stars or us try to find the continent or some tiny island using a wavering ADF needle and some luck. Instead the GPS and the nav system’s purple line takes us door to door w no fuss or muss. Aaaah, progress!
The SP had one fewer passenger section in the cabin which would change the FE’s temperature control panel. Different cargo set-ups would change the fire detection / suppression panel. If something that old even had one. Fuel capacities were different and it may have had (or lacked) some tank(s) versus the -100.
Up front there would be different placards for weights and limit speeds and such. The SP had much different flaps, but the controls should have been the same. Unless the flap settings were different also and then that would have to be changed too. Depending on the details of engine model there may have been different redlines and yellow arcs on some engine gauges.
Big picture they’re each nuance changes. But if there are enough of them, converting one sim to the other with full fidelity might well be a bigger PITA than it’s worth.
In 1972 an F-86 Sabre crashed into a Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour Restaurant in Sacramento. I don’t know if my sister ever went to a Farrell’s after that. She was afraid an airplane would crash into it (in San Diego). This was before The World According To Garp.
"Smith was previously cited for flying a fixed wing aircraft below minimum safe altitude, against Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, four months ago, in February 2023.
i don’t know if they can hold this against him but it looks like he has a thing for National Parks.
What I found interesting is that the article says they found him eating snacks. Snacks are not a picnic. He’d be better off claiming heavy downdrafts in the mountains but he really needs a different hobby.
Innocent until proven guilty means the Park Service has to prove there wasn’t a weather issue. History is full of examples of fatal unforeseen weather events. Mountain flying would be chapter 1.
Granted completely. OTOH, IF he had been noodling around in a helo in the middle of a mountainous forest on a day where the clouds are, and have been all day, tangent to the trees in many areas amounts to asking for it. IOW, careless & reckless operation.
You, I, and the Feds don’t know about the actual weather (yet), but the guy has prior form of sustained low altitude ops in places where it’s a) prohibited, and b) not smart.
You and I aren’t helo pilots, and helo drivers’ attitude to lowering weather has an extra get-out-of-jail-free card that fixed-wing pilots aren’t used to. Then again, in forbidding enough terrain or dense enough trees, there’s no landing a helo either.
As to this guy’s behavior, I smell smoke. Might be a fire, might not. We’ll see.
Quoting a snip from a couple weeks ago upthread about the Delta 717 nose gear problem. See @Dr.Strangelove’s post for cites to the original event.
The NTSB has released their preliminary report. About as expected, one of the various auxiliary struts in the nose gear mechanism had broken, jamming up the works. The rest was just standard airline problem management to a successful conclusion. Before any investigation, a strut somehow become detached at one end was the other plausible cause.
In a refreshing bout of truth-telling that may be more courageous than advantageous for self or company, the CEO of United Airlines has again been saying the obvious: Climate change is real, it’s going to f*** up air travel, and it’s going to be expensive. See
If he keeps this up he may generate a howling rageful boycott from the AGW-denier set. About like Bud Light has inadvertently triggered with their LGBTQ-supportive advertising.
A helicopter may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (b) or (c) of this section, provided each person operating the helicopter complies with any routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for helicopters by the FAA;
All of my helicopter flying has been in the Greater L.A. area. Typically, I/we would fly at 400 feet AGL. Of course we’d request a transition through controlled airspace (e.g. BUR), specifying 400 feet. (Maximum altitude crossing the departure end of LAX was 100 feet AGL.) ‘Routes’ were basically the freeways.
Not that any of this has anything to do with landing in a prohibited area; just that unlike fixed-wings, helicopters are allowed to operate at low altitudes.
It’s likely a raging inferno but somebody has to prove there weren’t aviation related weather issues. Any good lawyer will list every fatal accident that involved predicted good weather until the prosecutor cries uncle.
Maybe a dozen ramp checks will change his way of thinking.
Dropping stuff in the cockpit has always been dangerous.
We have iPads too. Try to leave them in their cradle as much as possible and certainly while hand flying. Helos have different needs, but still seems kinda sloppy.
I watched one of Mentour Pilot’s videos a while back, about an incident where the captain’s SLR camera jammed behind the side stick, preventing him from pulling it back far enough to be able to climb at any significant rate. I don’t recall which one it was now.
It’s not like the cameras in cell phones have good resolution or features like color correction or panoramic views which are perfect for cockpit photos…