February 17, 20251 yr 1 hour ago, anavsun said: Thank you. ILS at a discounted price. 🙂 Kind of the other way around actually. RNAV at a discounted price, by making it look like an ILS so crews don't need any specific training for it 😉. Andrew Crowley
February 17, 20251 yr To be honest, I rather like the IAN approaches in my PMDG 737. They seem to do the job every time, and I am familiar and comfortable with them. The fact that I select an RNAV approach for this is irrelevant to me. I just want an automated approach that will get me to where I want to be at 1500 feet when I switch to manual mode. Christopher Low AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU / 64GB DDR5-6000 RAM / 12GB Nvidia RTX 4070 Super GPU / Gigabyte X870E Aorus Elite Wifi 7 / 1+2TB Samsung Evo Plus M2 Nvme UK2000 Beta Tester
February 17, 20251 yr On a return flight from Orlando to Gatwick last year on the 777 I experienced my first confirmed autoland as a passenger. Booking a window seat as usual I couldn't see jack on the way down and at about fl100 the pilot told us due to very low visibility at Gatwick we'd be doing the autoland. Being a user of pmdg planes for years and the 777 I thought that was cool as I could imagine them setting the cockpit up. So I had my nose glued to the window looking under the wing as I was interested what the visibility ceiling actually was. I live not far from the airport so was disappointed not to get a good look but hey autoland! Slats, gear, flaps all came out. No sign of the ground. Engines spooling up as they countered all the drag and it felt like we were close. No scenery at all though I wondered if we were upside down would I know it? Silly thought yes but we'd had turbulence so bad earlier I really thought the plane would break apart. OK I wanna see the airport fence now please and the runway. Nope. For one moment I thought if this is how it ends I'm lucky. I won't see it coming, no fear nothing. Where IS the ground?! Then we were down, firm and smooth, the first landing I never saw the ground AT ALL before touchdown. Couldn't even see the ground clearly under the wing or the edge of the runway either when taxiing. Which we did back to gate at what must have been over 40kts maybe 50 until off runway and first taxiway but FAST for sure all the way back. Way faster than I ever do in the sim so years of guilt for 'speeding' my heavy were wiped away at that moment! The landing left my brain amazed for the first time in tech jaded decades that I was in a large metal tube with hundreds of others that had flown all the way from America to England and landed on a tiny strip of land unseen from the air as it was invisible to the naked eye. Such trust we have in technology! The pilots must have see the runway lights through the fog right? Even with CAT IIIb you still have minimums even if its just 50ft? Edited February 17, 20251 yr by sloppysmusic Inevitable autocorrected tippos.. Russell Gough SE London
February 17, 20251 yr 3 minutes ago, sloppysmusic said: Even with CAT IIIb you still have minimums even if its just 50ft? Depending on equipment, you can actually have no DH and only require RVR >75m. EASA PPL SEPL + NQ / CB-IR in progress MSFS24 | X-Plane 12
February 17, 20251 yr 10 minutes ago, SAS443 said: Depending on equipment, you can actually have no DH and only require RVR >75m. That would make sense that day thanks! No exaggeration a pea souper for sure. Russell Gough SE London
February 17, 20251 yr 28 minutes ago, sloppysmusic said: Which we did back to gate at what must have been over 40kts maybe 50 until off runway and first taxiway but FAST for sure all the way back. Way faster than I ever do in the sim so years of guilt for 'speeding' my heavy were wiped away at that moment! Fast taxi in a big airplane in low vis is a recipe for disaster. Most of us crawl in those conditions. Hopefully it just felt fast because of the low vis! As for the rest, yes, you don't see much. The HUD helps; it's obviously just line symbology but it gives you SOMETHING to look at, and there's a little comfort in redundancy - knowing that the HGS system is drawing its symbology and flight guidance independently of the FCCs using its own computer. So if the autoland is staying in the HUD guidance, that's a little confirmation it's going to the right place. I've only ever done a few autolands without the HUD when it was inop, and man that is disconcerting when you're used to having at least a little (synthetic) visual reference. They tell us a true synthetic vision addon for the HUD is coming... That'll be nice. Andrew Crowley
February 17, 20251 yr 5 hours ago, Christopher Low said: To be honest, I rather like the IAN approaches in my PMDG 737. They seem to do the job every time, and I am familiar and comfortable with them. The fact that I select an RNAV approach for this is irrelevant to me. I just want an automated approach that will get me to where I want to be at 1500 feet when I switch to manual mode. And that is achieved by staying in LNAV/VNAV. Simple as that.
February 17, 20251 yr 12 hours ago, Stearmandriver said: The important question is, when are you getting PAID? 😉 From Out (doors closed, brakes released) to In (brakes set, L1 door open). Depends on the contract. If I were a pilot I would not sign a contract that does not pay the preparation time. The workday starts the moment you meet in the briefing room and do your crew briefings and ends after your last leg of the day the minute you leave the aircraft
February 17, 20251 yr 51 minutes ago, Farlis said: And that is achieved by staying in LNAV/VNAV. Simple as that. Yes, but then I do not get to see "FAC" and "G/P" on the FMA Edited February 17, 20251 yr by Christopher Low Christopher Low AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU / 64GB DDR5-6000 RAM / 12GB Nvidia RTX 4070 Super GPU / Gigabyte X870E Aorus Elite Wifi 7 / 1+2TB Samsung Evo Plus M2 Nvme UK2000 Beta Tester
February 17, 20251 yr 2 hours ago, Farlis said: Depends on the contract. If I were a pilot I would not sign a contract that does not pay the preparation time. The workday starts the moment you meet in the briefing room and do your crew briefings and ends after your last leg of the day the minute you leave the aircraft I haven't been to this "briefing room" you speak of in weeks 😂. That went away with paper "paperwork". Crew briefings work just as well, and sometimes better, in the airplane. As far as being paid for preflight... Meh. It's good to have standards, but you wouldn't be working in the industry if you held out for that since no one is paid that way. However, when your hourly rate is near $400/hr, the preflight and post flight are sort of captured by the hourly. There's a lot of soft time as well... Min day pay (fly a 2 hour leg to the overnight for the day, but get paid 5:15) and other rigs, delay etc. Then there's premium... General rule is that you can take your hourly rate, add three zeros, and be ballpark on yearly pay (though it's easy to exceed that by quite a bit if you work at it a little). Naw, folks at US airlines at least don't have much to complain about in the way of pay, these days. (Though big picture, the current environment is simply making up for a decade and a half of career value destruction after 9/11, and so is in no way excessive.) As far as logging, the better question is... Why bother? I haven't logged airline flying in years. The only time it's relevant is filling out insurance paperwork for GA flying, and that can be estimated. Andrew Crowley
February 17, 20251 yr We never met as a crew outside the airplane. We picked up our paper flight packets from a room that had terminals, printers, and phones (for calling dispatch). Most of the time, we wouldn’t need the phones. Then it was off to the aircraft to meet the F/O, who had been doing the preflight in the meantime. I actually quit putting anything in my log book after 6600 hours… always meant to go back and update it, but never got around to it. I wrote everything down in one of those little red books so I could verify my pay, but I got lazy on transferring the hours into my actual log book, and then I lost the little red books. Oh well. We had a per diem rate that paid for duty time, which was the time you showed up to the airport until the time you went to your own home (not the hotel), but it was trivial. The real pay was for flight hours only. Edited February 17, 20251 yr by prolixindec
February 17, 20251 yr 8 hours ago, Stearmandriver said: Fast taxi in a big airplane in low vis is a recipe for disaster. Most of us crawl in those conditions. Hopefully it just felt fast because of the low vis! As for the rest, yes, you don't see much. The HUD helps; it's obviously just line symbology but it gives you SOMETHING to look at, and there's a little comfort in redundancy - knowing that the HGS system is drawing its symbology and flight guidance independently of the FCCs using its own computer. So if the autoland is staying in the HUD guidance, that's a little confirmation it's going to the right place. I've only ever done a few autolands without the HUD when it was inop, and man that is disconcerting when you're used to having at least a little (synthetic) visual reference. They tell us a true synthetic vision addon for the HUD is coming... That'll be nice. Oh it was fast alright! I'm guessing cos of the poor conditions there were very few departures at that time so atc might have said they were clear. Even so..!! Thinking aloud about the future hud.. How about the runway threshold having a set of radio /UV beacons along each side which the landing plane could easily read with suitable equipment giving you perfect 'landing vision' even in zero visibility? The hud would show exactly what was ahead of you no gps /ins /ils needed at minimums even. You could even see the runway a mile away through fog... Russell Gough SE London
February 17, 20251 yr 21 minutes ago, sloppysmusic said: Thinking aloud about the future hud.. How about the runway threshold having a set of radio /UV beacons along each side which the landing plane could easily read with suitable equipment giving you perfect 'landing vision' even in zero visibility? It kind of does that on its own, no need for beacons near the runway. The runway lights are enough to be visible through fog. https://www.google.com/search?q=737+hgs+synthetic+vision&client=ms-android-verizon-us-rvc3&sca_esv=3a74d9e957c622ad&source=android-browser&udm=2&biw=384&bih=758&sxsrf=AHTn8zrK9ZNoznyOgTmoAmmVzp0XoBA0_A%3A1739824464466&ei=UJ2zZ9WSHIm_0PEP0Ne64AI&oq=737+hgs+synthetic+vision&gs_lp=EhJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWciGDczNyBoZ3Mgc3ludGhldGljIHZpc2lvbjIIEAAYogQYiQUyCBAAGIAEGKIEMgUQABjvBTIFEAAY7wVI8hdQ5w9Y8xRwAHgAkAEAmAGHAaABuwSqAQMwLjW4AQPIAQD4AQGYAgWgAtcEwgIHECMYJxjJApgDAIgGAZIHAzAuNaAHwQ0&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img#vhid=FpuPrpG7ismDRM&vssid=mosaic Andrew Crowley
February 17, 20251 yr 5 hours ago, Christopher Low said: Yes, but then I do not get to see "FAC" and "G/P" on the FMA And no one needs these. 😉
February 19, 20251 yr Author On 2/17/2025 at 11:28 AM, Stearmandriver said: I haven't been to this "briefing room" you speak of in weeks 😂. That went away with paper "paperwork". Crew briefings work just as well, and sometimes better, in the airplane. As far as being paid for preflight... Meh. It's good to have standards, but you wouldn't be working in the industry if you held out for that since no one is paid that way. However, when your hourly rate is near $400/hr, the preflight and post flight are sort of captured by the hourly. There's a lot of soft time as well... Min day pay (fly a 2 hour leg to the overnight for the day, but get paid 5:15) and other rigs, delay etc. Then there's premium... General rule is that you can take your hourly rate, add three zeros, and be ballpark on yearly pay (though it's easy to exceed that by quite a bit if you work at it a little). Naw, folks at US airlines at least don't have much to complain about in the way of pay, these days. (Though big picture, the current environment is simply making up for a decade and a half of career value destruction after 9/11, and so is in no way excessive.) As far as logging, the better question is... Why bother? I haven't logged airline flying in years. The only time it's relevant is filling out insurance paperwork for GA flying, and that can be estimated. Do airlines pay for the certification, exams, and hours spent by the pilot while preparing and doing the continuing ed?
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