I use to work with a guy that flew A7’s. he said he flew into a storm cell once and it twisted the plane.
Another USAF saying:
There is no peacetime mission that requires flying into a thunderstorm.
there’s no peacetime mission for a lot of things military pilots do. And yet they do them.
Well, he never said he coined it.
I prefer, “It’s better to use your superior judgement to keep you out of situations which require the use of your superior skills.”
That applies to a lot of life.
But isn’t nearly as pithy.
I think it’s more like “A superior pilot uses superior judgement to avoid using superior skills”.
This might be an odd question, but I can’t think of a better place to ask it.
I recently came across a picture of a Cessna 310 (twin-engine, low wing, 6-seat), and I got to wondering how the passengers get in to the second- and third-row seats. There’s a door over the right wing for the front seats. And it looks like there’s a small door (also on the right) to put cargo or suitcases on the floor at the very back of the cabin. But if there’s a third door, I can’t find it.
Is all access through the front right door, or is there another way in? I’ve searched online but can’t find any pictures. And I know I’ve seen a 310 in person, but that was ages ago.
“A truly superior pilot knows the difference between “that” and “which”, and their appropriate use in restrictive and non-restrictive clauses.” – Wolfpup 
You fold the back of the first seat forward to access the 2nd row and you get to the 3rd row between the gap in the 2nd row.
You can also repeat the process of getting into the 3rd row by folding the seat-back forward of one of the 2nd row seats.
there’s nothing graceful about getting in and out of this type of plane and you would load back to front with the person in the door position getting in last.
If you were hauling 5 people then removing the right-side 2nd row seat makes it nicer for all concerned.
Is a 310 that much smaller than a Beechcraft Baron? I’m pretty sure the Baron has a door for the folks in back. A Cessna 206 has six seats and three doors, if I remember correctly. I know they make planes as small and light as possible, but considering the cost I think the 310 could be a little easier to get in and out of.
A related question; if you have to load the passengers from back to front, does it ever get tail-heavy enough to tip backwards before the front passengers get in?
doors cost money.
As far as dropping a plane on it’s tail there’s a lot of weight forward of the wings to keep it from tipping when loading. also there’s a weight and balance component to any plane so there’s a limit to how much weight can be loaded in the 3rd row and that would be calculated ahead of time.
@Magiver, thanks for the replies.
I know about weight and balance; had my private license a few decade ago. It still looks like two adults in the third row could tip the plane backwards before the pilot and co-pilot get in to bring the CG forward again. I suppose the pilot could get in first, then the passengers, then the co-pilot last.
And yeah, doors cost money, but they’re still kind of important. When I was a kid, I always found it annoying to have to squeeze into the back seat of a two-door car. If you’re flying a 310 you’re already paying for the airframe, two engines, constant-speed props, retractable gear, avionics stack, insurance, annual inspections, and a hundred gallons of avgas every time you top up; would you really balk at the cost of a door? Of course, the person footing the bill gets to sit in front.
On the other hand, Cessna stopped making the 310 in 1980, while the Baron (with its pricey extra door) is still in production.
That in fact could be true… Seats are not a guarantee of weight capacity. There are many 4 seat planes that can’t lift 4 adults and full fuel.
I thought this NYT article was interesting (I presume it’s behind a paywall): https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/travel/pilots-retraining.html
In essence, it discusses issues with retraining on a host of issues for pilots who have either been completely out of work, or who have worked very reduced hours, due to layoffs/furloughs/demand during the pandemic. With a rise in vaccinations and the anticipation of a busy summer season, a lot of these folks are getting back to work, but are having to adjust.
This got my attention, and I wonder how the commercial pilots here have experienced differences with passenger loads:
On his first flight — on an almost empty Airbus 320 — as the plane started to accelerate for takeoff, Mr. Gaad was surprised by how quickly it picked up speed. He had been used to flying the same aircraft full of passengers and had not covered how the weight differential might affect a flight.
“The speed surprised me for one or two seconds, and my heart raced,” Mr. Gaad said. “The buildup of speed, the buildup of altitude, the speed that you need to control during landing and other phases, it’s entirely different from what you’re used to, but then after one or two flights you get used to it.”
When demand evaporated in Mar 2020 it was a real surprise for a lot of pilots as our gross weights suddenly collapsed. As said, once you know to think about it, it becomes easy. But the first couple of departures can be sporty.
We also ferry airplanes from here to there with zero passengers, zero cargo, zero flight attendants, and near zero galley equipment. That too is sporty unless you’ve thought about it. The difference is nobody is unaware they’re doing a ferry.
On the other hand … Yesterday I launched a MAX with all seats occupied on a 3-hour flight out of a short runway in gusty conditions. Which situation set us up to use full power and one of the higher flap settings. 737s are generally viewed as underpowered plodding dump trucks, not sports cars. Conversely the 757 I used to fly was/is always a sprightly performer and you had to be quick to stay ahead of it. Anyhow, we quickly lept off the runway and rocketed steeply into the sky with me being unwilling to climb steeply enough to keep the airspeed from increasing well above the norm.
The point being that full or empty, COVID or no, on different days we experience widely different performances. It’s inattentive workmanship to not have thought through what’s about to happen, be that quick or leisurely. Good accurate expectations are what prevent bad surprises.
A related issue was that as traffic collapsed, suddenly arriving in O’Hare was a low-traffic lazy operation more like arriving in Des Moines. That was weird too.
As we’re building the industry back up we’re going the other way. Now folks who’ve been flying semi-empty airplanes are getting used to full ones again. And traffic is building quickly to historical norms.
The heavier traffic is a bigger change for ATC controllers than it is for pilots; they’ve been lazing through easy days and are now having to hustle again. Often traffic has returned faster than their furloughees been brought back on staff, leading to folks carrying a very heavy burden of difficult hard-working shifts plus overtime.
So for both pilots and ATC we have folks who left while the industry was slow and lightly loaded who are now coming back straight into almost the pre-COVID hustle and bustle.
At my carrier we have a shortage of First Officers because each returning furloughee needs a couple weeks’ refresher and our training department throughput is lower than the rate of schedule ramp-up. Any FO who wants to make bank can fly overtime (“OT”) right up to the legal limits; the supply of OT is seemingly bottomless. We also early-retired a bunch of Captains, but not as many percentagewise. So although OT is available, my section’s not swimming in it.
I’m curious:
What makes a plane “require” two pilots to fly it?
Some time ago I made a guess at it and was disabused (I think I guessed number of passengers).
So what is it? Would I be wrong in thinking that one pilot could (if they had to) fly a 747? Not saying that is ideal but they could. It is obviously safer to have two pilots but if it is not the passenger count then what is it the FAA makes these decisions on?
What about GA jets? At some point you see them go from single pilot operation to dual pilot operation.
Where is the line drawn? Why?
In terms of FAA regulations, I think it actually is the number of passengers, though someone more knowledgeable might correct me if I’m wrong. As I understand, the Cessna 208 can physically hold something like 14 seats, but in the US it’s typically only fitted with 9 seats because that’s the maximum allowed with a single pilot here.
I also remember reading on another board about the now defunct Great Lakes Airlines’ creative solution to a shortage of pilots (or a shortage of pilots willing to work for what they paid). They removed all but 9 seats from some of their Beech 1900s (which normally have 19 seats), which apparently allowed them to be flown with a single pilot. The Essential Air Service routes they flew them on typically didn’t have that many passengers anyway.